Tuesday, December 12, 2006

She's Back... We're Off

Hi everyone, Life is very different now. Andy, the kids & I are in Los Angeles with Andy’s Sister Julia and her family, Michael & cousins Kayla & Emma. It’s great to be here.

I was home from South Africa on Thursday, and we left for our December Mexico Vacation on Saturday night. We will be back home at the beginning of January. Ironically, it has been a very relaxing slow time

South Africa.

I went to see a healer who has an amazing gift. Leo is online but does not discuss his work on his website. He is a Shaolin marshal arts master. You can see him if you go to www.shaolin.co.za. But you may be disappointed. There is not much to see unless you are interested in the marshal arts. He worked with my aura and has made a huge difference. I feel great and many people have separately described me as ‘radiant.’ Not bad eh? I am going to have an oncology appointment during the second week of January. Before that, I will have some blood tests to see how I am doing.

I went with my cousin Deana on my mom’s side of the family. We had a wonderful peaceful time together. We were very fortunate to get an amazing guest house in Johannesburg, walking distance from the healer. Because Jo’burg has so much in common with a Texas suburb, we ended up having to rent a car. I drove on the other side of the road!! And returned the rental car unscathed!!

I was worked on between 4 & 7 hours per day. That left a lot of time for resting and finding food. That was about it. Friday – Sunday I did not have a treatment, so we went north on what everyone said was a 5 hour drive that took us 8 hours each way, to a private game park. That is a place that has wild animals wandering around. We went on safari!! We saw the ‘big 5’- Water buffalo, Rhinocerous, Elephant, Lion & Cheetah as well as a bunch of other animals including zebras and giraffes. It was beautiful.

The biggest surprise of the trip was the quality of food in South Africa is STUPENDOUS! Which made the trip that much more enjoyable. It was very similar to California food with huge salads and very fresh, mostly organic food.

Right now we are headed to Baja California, which is in Mexico. We have no reservations anywhere, just a general direction to head. We have our cell phones, but no computer. Don’t know if the cells are going to work down there or not. I am aware that so many people have so many questions to ask me about my experience. I don’t think I have many answers though. It was simply fabulous and I am grounded and happy. One of the main differences in my life is that I am slowing down. So I look forward to seeing and speaking to all of you out there, but it might take a while.

Love to you all and thank you for your love and prayers.

Rebecca

Saturday, November 25, 2006

And She's Off...

Rebecca has been given an amazing opportunity to go and visit with an aurik healer who has healed people with much worst conditions than hers. He is in South Africa, she is gone. Rebecca has spoken with this guy several times on the phone and has talked with a friend of the family who had brain and lung cancer and was cured by this healer. Rebecca was given the opportunity to go and work with this guy, so she went. After several hours of back and forth we came to the conclusions that; It would be really hard on the kids if we both disappeared for 2 weeks, it’s really hard for me to leave work at the drop of a hat and I might not be the best support for Rebecca while she’s at healing. We did know that Rebecca should have someone go with her. With another stroke of serendipity Rebecca’s cousin Dina was willing and able to go with Rebecca. Dina is a healer herself and someone who Rebecca has a deep, trusting and loving relationship with. She is the perfect companion for this trip.

It is now Saturday afternoon. Yesterday Rebecca and Dina flew to DC and now, as I write this, they are getting on a plane to South Africa. They’ll be gone for 2 weeks… I pray that this helps!!

I’ll let you know what I hear.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Been a while

Hi All,

It's been a while, which is a good thing. Like I said at the beginning of this whole thing... no news is good news. If there's stuff happening I will post about it. If life is just 'going on' then I'm happy not to think about this.

Meanwhile... Rebecca has been on the hormone treatment for a couple of weeks and so far the side effects haven't been too bad. She has been a little more tired than usual but that's about it. She is eating really well and learning how to balance her PH. It seems to be a constant battle but when she needs to; she brings out the big guns, kale and chard. She’s doing a great job of resisting the sweet stuff and as a result is loosing weight in the process.

We had an interaction the other day that you had to laugh at… talk about bursting someone’s bubble… We met a guy who decided that he a had to wax poetic on the fact that Rebecca looked SOOOO healthy; she’s obviously SOOO healthy… Well we had to tell him. It took the wind out of his sails. But the funny thing is, she really does look great, I’m guessing it’s because she’s eating so well. It makes you wonder what’s going on inside.

Meanwhile the next big milestone will be in the new year when they test Rebecca again and see how her tumor markers are doing. If things are good then she should be able to stay on the current treatment plan as long as she seems to be stable. Meanwhile she can keep working on the alternative treatments that hold the promise of a cure. We will be meeting with a Doctor (MD, acupuncturist and homeopath) on the 29th who is meant to routinely cure cancer. We’ll see what he has to say.

In the interim we have both my dad and Rebecca’s dad coming for flying visits. Rebecca’s dad flies in a couple of hours after mine leaves. Then we head of for a 3 week driving trip through Baja, Mexico. We haven’t booked anything; we’re planning on just driving south and going where the whim takes us…. Viva la… Viva.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Two things

As you know, one of the goals or Rebecca’s change of diet has been to change the acidity of her body. She has been eating foods that promote a less acid, more balanced, PH. When she started 2 weeks ago her PH was 5 she has now got a PH of 7. 7 is a neutral… now she has to maintain.

A moment about me, for those of you who wonder what I do; here’s a press release that doesn’t help you understand… But apparently I do it well.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

From Rebecca

Hi everyone out there. Thank you for keeping track of what is going on with me. So far it really is not a lot. I have done a ton of research on alternative healing options for cancer. It seems that there is a lot out there. If you want to know what I have found, get the book ‘Outsmart your Cancer.’ I have also looked into Ayervedic medicine, Tibetan medicine and Chinese medicine. I am starting with a combination. There is a doctor in Sebastopol (yes it is a 3 hour round trip!) who is an MD, Chinese doctor and Homeopath who does his own combination of treatments specifically for cancer patients. Isaac Aliaz. It is funny because my last Chinese doctor who got me through my first round of cancer was Isaac Cohen. Two Israeli, Isaac, Acupuncturists for cancer. The first Isaac has stopped seeing patients and has gone into research around getting key compounds out of herbs and into little pills approved by the FDA for things like menopause. It has worked for my hot flashes and emotional roller coaster, so I hope that he can help others.

I found Isaac through personal connections and have met some of his patients who are cancer free and doing very well.

SO FAR…. I have gone to Amitabha Clinic one time to do the intake and meet the nutritionalist on staff. I have drastically altered my eating. I am doing 3 things:

1. Alkalizing my body. We all have a ph in our chemistry. Cancer seems to like a highly acid body. You can look on line to see a list of acid/alkaline foods. Needless to say, sugars and fatty foods are at the top of the acid column. I went through Halloween without eating one piece of candy!! I almost fell off the wagon last night, but I kept it down to eating almond butter and homemade blueberry jelly on rice crackers. That is about as sweet as I get.

2. Why almond butter, well I am also trying to ‘Insulin Balance.’ When one eats sugar, ones body produces and insulin spike. One gets addicted to these spikes. Boy howdy, they are my drug of choice. So then when ones blood sugar drops the body eats more sugar to get the insulin. So….another reason to not eat sugar. If one does want sugar if it arrives in the body with fats and oils, then at least it gets processed slowly and there is less insulin. Therefore, almond butter. Why not peanut butter? Well..

3. I am also doing an ‘Elimination diet.’ I have taken all possible allergens out of my diet for a week and I am reentering them into my diet one every two days. I will see if my body goes haywire each time. So far I reentered wheat last night. Boy did I miss wheat!! So far no reaction. I did not expect one. Most people know that I had to take milk out of my diet 17 years ago (ok that makes me feel old) but not everyone knows that about 10 months ago, I put it back into my diet. It has been yummy, but this time I had to take both milk and soy out of my diet. I am guessing that I will be able to eat small amounts of milk products, but not the quantities of cheese that were happening, and very little soy. That is my guess. Let’s wait and see what my body says.

So the Alkalizing is working, I have reduced my insulin, I and I am going to my first Isaac visit on Nov 26ish. I can’t remember the date off the top of my head.

I am also meditating almost daily and slowing my life way down. I have reduced my clients. I only have 3 clients that I see weekly and two that I see monthly. I am spending less time with other people and more time alone. I am actually enjoying my own company more than I used to. I think that is due to the meditation. I am also not being so hard on my self. Something that people have been trying to get me to do since I was just a little little kid.

So once again, I am planning on beating this thing once and for all, by getting rid of it this time and changing my life so that I am not creating an environment in my body that is conducive to cancer.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

One less thing

So we managed to avoid the biopsy… After long debate we understood that the biopsy is really unnecessary. Dr Gordon has agreed that we are just as well off simply trying the alternate hormone therapy and seeing how it goes as we would be if Rebecca had the biopsy… so why have the biopsy.

IF the hormone therapy doesn’t help, and Rebecca has to do chemo, then it might be worth doing the biopsy to check the efficacy of adding herceptin to the mix… but, as George W. like to say… we’ll blow up that bridge when we get to it.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

next update

The interventional radiologists decided that they would not perform a biopsy. However, the pulmonary surgeons have said they can do a biopsy easily. They say that by going in down the throat with a camera they can get what is needed in a procedure that is no more risky than having a wisdom tooth pulled. They say that they do 3 of these procedures a day.

Rebecca will probably be scheduled for the biopsy later this week or early next. I’ll let you know when I know.

Meanwhile, Rebecca has started the journey into alternate ways of addressing the cancer. She has started by radically evaluating her diet. She is currently on an exclusion diet where she has cut out a lot of food from her diet. Next week she will start reintroducing these foods and monitoring how she feels with the addition of each.

We have also been getting lots of information about alternate cures for cancer. The volume of testimonials of people being cured from cancers that doctors say can’t be treated is overwhelming and can’t be ignored. Given that Rebecca’s doctor has said ‘this isn’t curable’ it seems that relying on conventional medicine alone at this point would be pretty dumb. Now we are researching to which options we should try first. Rebecca is confidant that she WILL beat this.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Oncolgy Update

So I will start with the facts as I have understood them so far. I will try to fight the opposing urges to either paint too rosy a picture or, on the other hand, to sink into morose exclamations of gloom.

Dr Gordon showed us Rebecca’s CT scan on his computer. There were several small ‘lumps’ in her lung that are still very small, although apparently larger than last time. Dr Gordon said that these are not what worry him. He then showed us some lymph nodes in the area in front of, and between, the lungs that are inflamed that either were not on the last scan or have grown since the last scan; these, he said, worry him. Coupled with the fact that blood work done last week showed highly elevated ‘tumor markers’ leads him to be ‘sure’ that this is a reoccurrence of the breast cancer. The bone scan came back clear.

The doctor made it clear that ‘recurrent breast cancer is not a curable disease’ BUT that you can live a long time, with good quality of life, while undergoing treatment.

The next step is the hope that the interventional radiologist will say that he can biopsy one of the lymph nodes. The reason that the doctor wants the biopsy is not to check if this is breast cancer or not but rather to tell some characteristics of it. Rebecca’s original cancer was HER2 negative and Estrogen Receptor Positive. A recurrence after such a long time may or may not have the same characteristics. If Rebecca’s cancer is still hormone receptor positive then Dr Gordon feels we can try a course of hormone therapy to treat it. If it is not hormone receptor positive then there is no point going down that path and he would recommend going to a chemo therapy. If the cancer is now HER2 positive then they could add something to the chemo that would ‘help’.

All of this depends on whether a biopsy is possible. Because of where the involved nodes are they are hard to get to; one is nestled up against her heart and another is up against an actuary leading from the heart. The third involved node ‘may’ be far enough out in the open that they think they can get to it safely.

If they decide that they can’t biopsy then Dr Gordon recommends starting a course of hormone treatment and then monitoring the tumor markers and the size of the nodes to see if it effective. Because we have caught this very early he is comfortable ‘trying’ this less aggressive treatment first to see if it works.

If the hormone treatment is effective, and Rebecca tends to be very receptive to treatment, he said this treatment could be effective in keeping this in check for years. This is great as these drugs are not meant to have large side effects. Rebecca did try one of these in the past it didn’t go that well but we aren’t sure if those ‘side effects’ weren’t actually just a flue that was going around at the time.

If the hormone treatment proves ineffective then it’s time to consider chemo.

Rebecca is upbeat as always; she acknowledges that western medicine says that they can’t cure this. She is going to use the western medicine to buy her time she needs to find the healing tradition that can cure it. In the last week we have spent a day with a Tibetan Lama, gone to synagogue and spent an evening with some shamanic spirit channelers (one of whom brought forward the spirit of Hiawatha). It might cure her, it might not, but it looks like it’s going to be an entertaining journey… I’ll keep posting here.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Scan

Rebecca had a bone scan today... First she had to go be injected with some nasty stuff, then she left for a few hours and went back for the scan. I joined her for the second half. The radiology tech is a strange guy! He tries to be friendly but has NO social skills, it's kind of painful. One thing about this whole cancer thing... It sure brings into focus how much I love being with, and around, Rebecca; even if we are just hanging out in a doctors waiting room.

The scan results should be ready for our meeting with Gordon on Monday.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Nothing to report

There’s not really much to say at this point. Rebecca will be having a bone scan on Thursday and the results should be available for her appointment with Gordon on Monday. I’ll let you know what Gordon has to say on Monday night.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Here we go again

Well, we talked with Kelly and she pretty much said that we are talking about a metastasis on the right lung. The interventional radiologist said he may be able to attempt a biopsy. It sounds though like they are sure enough about what this is that they might just say, start Chemo and then watch for it to shrink on the ct scans. This is probably all premature though as Dr. Gordon, Rebecca’s oncologist, is on vacation and will not be able to weigh in until the week after next. It’s him that is going to be able to lay out the options for us the best.

I feel like I’ve been preparing for this for the last 5 years so I’m not as rocked as I could be. I might also just be in shock and not letting the impact really hit me yet. I can’t really get my head around what this all means.

Day2

It's Saturday afternoon now. I called Kelly last night and she said she would get some information for us within 24 hours. She called back about an hour ago, at about 2:00, saying that she hasn't forgotten us but she is in surgery and she will call later when she has had a chance to have her radiologist have a look at the films.

Meanwhile we decided to talk to the kids about why we are acting stressed out. We told them, Ravi looked sad and Gideon didn't really get it. Later I talked with Ravi about the fact that people might ask if her mom is going to die. I told her that people used to always die of cancer but that isn't true any more. I implied that everything would be OK, I hope it's true. I'm glad I brought it up as her response was, "yup, I thought people always die of cancer".

Friday, October 13, 2006

First of Few

With any luck I will write in this blog a couple of times and will stop because there is nothing worth writing. If I do write it will be about what’s going on with Rebecca, the kids and I while we get an understanding of what is going on with Rebecca’s health.

It’s is Friday afternoon, October 13th, yes, Friday the 13th.

Three months ago Rebecca had PET and CAT scans as we have been concerned about some swelling in her arm that we couldn’t explain. There was nothing found that could be attributed to the arm problem but an ‘anomaly’ was found in her chest area described as ‘under the zyphoid process’. After briefly discussing a surgical biopsy it was decided that ‘it was probably nothing’ and that we should just wait three months and have another set of scans. If the ‘thing’ was bigger it would be bad, but probably it would be gone.

Earlier this week Rebecca went in for her follow up scan. We had thoroughly convinced ourselves that there was nothing wrong so I went, as scheduled, on a business trip to New York on Thursday (yesterday).

I’d been in New York for a couple of hours when I got a call from Rebecca… Kaiser had called and said; “The spot on the lung seems to have grown and where there was previously one node inflamed under the zyphoid process there now seems to be several”

They never said anything about anything on the lung first time round… so is this all just a clerical error and Rebecca just got someone else’s results? Wouldn’t that be nice.

So I jump on a plane and returned from NY and here I am.

We know way too little at this point. The implication is presumably that she has metastastic breast cancer on her lung. We have NO idea what that might mean, how bad that might be, what the treatments might be, etc. It doesn’t even seem like we should go too far down thinking about that option until we actually know if that’s what the doctors are saying. They may be talking plura, it may be something else altogether.

So now it’s the weekend and we get to wait till we can start talking to the doctors again next week. I might try to call Kelly, Rebecca’s surgeon, right now.

We haven’t told the kids anything… what would we say? We aren’t telling anyone really, not until we know more, but people can catch-up by reading this if they want.