Monthly Archives: June 2019

Cancer, Healing, Learning

Good Choice 9 – Sleep

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This week, is finding me detoxing and getting off some pretty nasty meds, including a steroid. Detoxing from meds is never fun, and never comfortable, but I have to say I was excited to get off the steroid. For me personally, this med does some just horrible things to me, not the least of which is total disruption of my sleep cycle and patterns.

I have always been an avid dreamer, and taking this drug nearly completely eliminates my dreams. There is a question of if I even manage much time in REM. Its not uncommon for me to wake soundly ever 4 hours.

The unfortunate thing is as this drug gets out of my system, my body crashes, hard. It is with great excitement that I was able to get like 18 hours of sleep yesterday. I woke pretty much every 4 – 6 hours did my personal routine when wake, and then back to a sound sleep.

it felt glorious. This is a new thing, a new appreciation of sleep. In the past, pre-cancer I had this feeling/belief that sleep was stealing from my time. I would actively work to try and sleep less, to control how much sleep I allowed myself to get. During my first experiences with cancer, I still stuck to this debilitating belief. I have come to realize that sleep is not only critically important, it also feels pretty great.

Such a shift in my thoughts, I remember being angry with myself for times when I overslept, when I didn’t wake up as early as I’d planned. Now, I am super excited when more sleep comes, when I am later than I had hoped I’d get to sleep.

When we sleep, when we rest our bodies, the cells get to do the healing. They get to do their job of making our bodies stronger. As we relax our bodies, our organs, our bones, our muscles, our cells, our dna and all the other parts of our energy body get to harmonize, and do a dance of healing that restores us, revitalizes us, and brings us into harmony.

They have told me that the radiation will take 2-3 months of a taxing thing on my energy. That I will be extra tired, and extra heavy from the radiation for this period of time, generally. I am looking forward to being able to nap and rest to heal back up.

I am wondering what it will be like to be a stronger person, that gets the most out of rest time, allows her body to revitalize fully, before pushing to the limits again and again. I am excited to meet this part of myself, that I have effectively gimped for so long, gotta do the work, and sleep.

Learning

Happy Fathers Day

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I have great fathers in my life, that I want to share and sing praises of just because its the right time, and it makes me happy to do this thing so I’m going to do it.

First my own father. He has a light and a goodness that runs like a free bull into whatever he feels passionately about. He is no nonsense, nonsense being defined differently day by day, as he learns. He is always learning. His thrive for knowledge is one of the most insatiable I have ever found or met. He is quick to anger, but also quick to apologize, realizing his own faults, and mistakes before even anyone needs to point them out. He is kind, and compassionate, he feels things deeply, but he often holds those feelings in, hidden away from everyone and the world. I love him with all my heart, and I wish him a beautiful day filled with amazing opportunities to guide his feet to new information on his quest for knowledge.

My stepfather. The man my mother chose to marry many years after. He is a curious man. Always seeking to understand things. He is a great man, always trying to poke things to get at the heart, and understand how they can be improved. He looks for projects, both people, things and places that can be touched, and that he can share his light with to make them shine brighter, look brighter, be happier. Sometimes he has rough edges, sometimes he is perceived as being aloof, these are because he is wildly contemplative. He is always in a state of almost meditation trying to find meaning in the things he sees and feels around him. He is loyal, and brave, he will defend those he loves with a bittersweet fervour. I am blessed to have him in the life of my mother, and my life, I wish him a day filled with clarity, and harmony, that the world around him today will be in sync and his internal music will shine and resonate.

My brothers in law. All four of them, so different, so varied, so incredible at being amazing dads. They each have a light inside that is so strong, so loving, and so amazing to watch with their children. I have watched over the years, the struggles they have faced, trying to be the best dads they can be, while staying true to their core. Each of them different and strong and bringing light to the lives of their children. I wish for each of them a day filled with bliss, and simplicity. Joy and peace in the small things that make life so great.

My mothers brother, who we recently went to the keys with, watching him grow and flower into a grandfather now, passing on his torch, his lessons of fatherhood to his son. He has always been a spark of creativity, always able to find the growth in every place, to add a little sunshine to a seed and see it sprout. His nature so diverse from the other fathers in my life, a gardener of the soul. I wish for him a day filled with peace and bounty, and unrequited joy.

I have learned so much from all the fathers in my life, seen so many things, and understood the pathways of the universe because of a few words from them at different times on my paths.

While I used to feel that holidays were a burden, I don’t feel that anymore. I feel they are a joy to be celebrated and I wish we had more of them. I feel they bring resonates to the light, and remind our hearts, minds and spirits that we are all connected, and that there is always hope, always beauty, always joy in this great place we share.

Happy Fathers Day, may your day be blessed, and great.

Cancer, Healing, Learning

Good Choice 8 – Waiting

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This blog was originally in my mind titled as “exercise”. And that might be a more catchy or more appropriate title to woo someone into reading it, but since this blog is for me, I think that titling it waiting is actually best.

First I’d like to talk on the fact that part of my healing, part of my personally developed protocol requires daily exercise. I have been endeavouring to make the movement of my body more regular, and more routine, and finding that I enjoy the fact that I can do this, and that I can push my limits. A 30 Minute walk is just always going to be a good choice for pretty much everyone, there are very few people who are truly unable to accomplish this task, and even they would probably benefit from the effort of the endeavor. Its just almost always going to be a good choice, but its also one of those things, that doesn’t really require spelling out. This is something we know… We like to talk about things we know, they sometimes help us gain inspiration to do them, but often they also defuse inspiration because we feel as if we have talked about them and that was part of the energy to accomplish the task.

In my case, the cancer was in the lymph. Also, when you have radiation, and dead cancer cells, its that good buddy your Lymph that moves all that junk across the stratosphere of your body, into the waste system to help you get it out, thru sweat and good old bathroom time, both necessitate the “movement” of lymph. The easiest, best and most healthy way to move lymph is thru good old fashion movement. its like that old colored bottle with the oil, turn it upside down to see the colored oil bubbles move out, dance around, jump around, or walk around to move that lymph and get those baddies out of your system.

But I digress. I named this post waiting… Smartly. There are alot of old adages about “stop to smell the roses” or “slow down life is to be savoured”… Its definitely worth mentioning, that while I have always had an acute sense of my own mortality thru the entirety of my life, this year has given me an even more razor sharp edge to that mortality, but sometimes I can be a little dense, and it takes me some time to realize the impacts of razor sharp things. I do not say this to be morbid or negative, but the only given in this life is that someday we will die. There is no punch card for getting out of this, so truly the only thing we have is time.

We all know that we have time, we rush, we hurry we move, and get from place to place doing, doing doing. While I recognize that life has elements of doing. There is a so much larger element of feeling.

I think maybe it was and has been because of the therapy I’m more acutely aware of feeling right now. A thing, one of the rare ones my therapist says, that sorta at first took me for a loop but has become something of an internal thing for me now is “How does that make you feel?”

Really? How does that make me feel? – its a stop and pause moment to ask that question, and then a stop and pause moment to answer it. And in the answering you are suddenly overcome with that emotion, of how it made you feel. The good, the not so good, and the bad. Getting to the root of all of those feelings and flushing out the bad ones has been part of the good choice of the therapy. But the realize has occured to me that that question is paramount to my healing.

By surrounding myself with waiting, and feeling all the good things that are around me all the time… stopping to realize, that even when things are not going my way, even when there are gaps or road blocks, I can still feel blessed, and happy and well… that those things, that used to make me crazy, or frustrated or sad, or angry or hurt, don’t need to……. Story time to relay the thoughts in my head into words..

We picked up foods last night for dinner, from Hat Creek. Kind of a rarer treat, particularly for me. I was overwhelmed by the fact that they have a pretty decent Vegan Burger, which they wrap with lettuce upon request, and serve with all sorts of tasty veggies. They also have one of my guilty pleasures, sweet potato french fries. We went thru the drive thru, as I was getting a treat, and it was dinner time so the place was hopping.

They messed up my order. They gave me regular fries not sweet potato fries.

P pulled the car over, and I walked inside. There was a huge line of hungry patrons at the counter, and 3 clerks meticulously working thru the line, with hungry soccer children, and families, and just general folks waiting for dinner. There was a clerk on the shakes – I didn’t indulge in these, but I do have to say I have in past, and their milk shakes are amazing. There were two floaters, and a manager.

As I stood at the pick up place, with my bag of incorrect food, I smiled. I waited.

I’m not precisely certain why I didn’t rush to get the attention of one of these people. I just suddenly, following intuition, knew I needed to wait. I needed to just stand there, with my little OPI REI sunscreen purple hat, covering my head, as I have to keep my head covered now from the radiation.

I smiled, and I waited.

I don’t know how long it took, but one of the people, I think it was the shake floater lady came over and I politely expressed to her that it was supposed to be sweet potato fries, not regular fries. She visible relaxed when I was polite. The lady ringing at the register at the end, that had noticed me and fully expected me to interrupt or ordering also visible relaxed.

Within less than a minute, the manager who had also been floating came over and brought me the sweet potato fries, also expecting me to be angry and hostile, and visible relaxed when I thanked her for fixing my order.

I felt the relief and the positive vibes resonate higher, and the line of people in the time I was there had also relaxed, as people were able to continue doing their work, and moving thru their process to get things accomplished. My waiting netted me the correct stuff, in pretty short time, and I felt pretty great about it.

Accidents happen, mistakes occur, we all make them. Whether it be me spilling the coffee, or forgetting to order the thing, or sending the wrong size, we are human, we are not perfect, and even though we try, sometimes we goof. I think what I am learning is how that sometimes those goofs are also an opportunity for enjoying positive emotions of help, grace, and generally forgiveness.

Waiting, is about observing, and feeling. Observing what is occuring, how other people are and what is happening around you, then assessing not the situation, but how you are in the situation, and correcting or fixing that.

Its worth mentioning, that the tie in to waiting and exercise is truly poignant. We all know “yeah yeah do your exercise” but we also all know, it takes time after you do exercise for the affects, or impacts to occur. Life takes time. Waiting is a part of life. Time is our only currency and we should be spending it on feeling more. Especially making sure we are feeling more positive, not negative, which sometimes takes waiting, to sort out.

We exercise today, for results tomorrow or next week, that time is waiting. Don’t stop the doing, but please try and spend some time waiting, and feeling.

I stopped to see the patterns in the clouds, and the shapes, and then thought about how they made me feel. I thought about the smell of the roses, and the images of how those memories make me feel, and the other places where the roses that smell so strongly so beautiful are located. To feel the connection to those people working, hard at work, trying to do their best to help everyone around them, and how maybe it isn’t a good day for them, but maybe me just smiling and waiting, and being happy at the solution instead of grouchy at the problem made things better.

We wait for many things in life, test, test results, strength, energy, focus, clarity, all of these are part of the journey, part of the what must be done, rather than focusing on these, going to continue this new found waiting knowledge of focusing on the feelings and ensuring that the waiting makes me happy.

Happy Waiting to you as well.

Healing, Learning

Good Choices – 7 Dial it up to 11

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Today’s good choice is Intuition.

I feel I have always had really strong, really good and really really powerful intuition. For the bulk of my life, I remember developing this super early, I remember memories from being very young and knowing about things.

For the bulk of my life, my intuition has been on and spot on at a volume of 2-3. Meaning, I could hear that strong powerful resonate voice in my head, and know what it meant, but it was also pretty easy to take a back seat and be bluntly ignored.

One of the choices I have actively made, as I work to heal my body, to make it stronger, to clean out all the cancer, to sweep the proverbial cobwebs away and be the beautiful person I know I am. …. is to actively turn that intuition up to 11.

At some point after, I believe it was honestly after getting back from my London trip, my intuition and I had this come to Alethia conversation. I recall, discussing things with myself, like an internal meditation, I don’t recall the details of the conversation, so I’m not precisely certain how I turned the intuition up. It was not a fast process, it was like climbing a step ladder that had a thousand steps.

The visual for this process for me, makes me think of one of those temples you find pictures of with so so so so many steps.

From my meditations, I know that I now know how to actively turn up my intuition. I would not say I have mastered this technique, but I would say I understand the fundamentals enough to get myself back to Loud Intuition.

Loud Intuition is so so great. I can’t speak highly enough of this, because bluntly its impossible to ignore. When you are trying to heal yourself, you need your intuition to be screaming at you, like the teacher, like the healer it is…. It knows, you know, what you need, just gotta pay attention and do the work.

I have countless examples of using this loud intuition and having them make my life recently so much better.

Its a pretty new thing for dialing it up, but I have to say that I have yet to find any downside. I am just so much more aware of everything around me, and the easiest, best and most correct path for me to follow. I will say, that it does take the foreknowledge that I’m not responsible for anyone else but myself, and not taking other peoples journeys, but this is a lesson that I had gotten under the belt so to speak long before turning up the intuition.

Intuition is powerful, it is also relaxing and freeing. It feels good, it feels whole, it feels like the best things in life all bundled up in to a warm fuzzy package of love, hope and all the possibilities of the universe.

Highly recommend getting into resonance with intuition. Its a super good choice.

Learning

Good Choices – 6 Prayer

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As I am writing this one, I am filled with a overwhelming sense of both concern and bliss.

For me, in my life, Prayer is always has always and will forever always be a good choice. It is also, like most or many of the good choices I have written about to date, generally a good choice for everyone. Its kinda a no brainer. I feel like maybe instead of singing the praises of prayer in this post, that maybe I should define and qualify what prayer is, since it seems to have over time, and over life and society gotten a very niche picture, which is not at all a full representation or a true representation of its power and majesty.

Let me start by stating, Prayer works for atheists. It does not in and of itself require or necessitate a deity controlling or predestining or harnessing the ask.

Prayer is asking. Meditation is relaxing, and thinking. Prayer is asking.

We as a universe, are connected. Science has even proven this to be the case. Every spec of energy is connected and flows in and out of each other. Prayer is the process of asking and speaking to that energy for intent.

Personally, I believe in God. I believe in a energy source, and its often easy to refer to that as God for me. Its not that I chose to define limits, or need a visual representation of that, for me, when I pray, I pray to the beauty of a black hole, or the birth of a star, the God that is the cosmos, of which I am truly a part, and my beauty my energy resides within that wholeness of universal existence.

Its often been a thing for me, that we like labels. We like pictures that give clear small limited definitions of how things are, and how we perceive them to be. Its much easier to fill up a glass with water, if you know what the glass looks like, how big it is, and how to turn on the water. For some people, prayer requires God to take on a form that is more physical, and more human like….. For me that’s a huge bit of a limit, but I will not judge what works for someone else.

Prayer is important. There is an old adage about “if you had just asked me….”…. I rather think of prayer as “asking for what you want”

If you don’t ask, its alot less likely to occur. There is never any harm in asking, even if you are almost certain the answer will be no. Asking puts into the universe the fact that you would like to have something.

Prayer is asking, ask for what you want, and do this on the regular.

There is a funny thing about prayer, the more aware and cognizant you become of that universal energy, the more positive and reciprocal impact it has on your life. I can not exactly express when or where this started to occur to me, but it has been years at this point, and its worth mentioning.

Because of the energy being connected, because we are all really one, even though we have these cute physical blobs of skin and blood, and other visceral matter that gives us a perception of being individual and disconnected, we forget that we are all connected. When you pray, or when someone prays for you, the energy is connected, it touches. You can feel it. You know, the person who prayed for you, you can touch their heart, feel their truth, and it is one of the most inspiring and awesome feelings in the world.

For me, its like a little spark or jolt of warmth that starts in my heart and basically resonates all throughout me. Its a connection that is unshakable and undeniable, although a little hard to put into tangible touchable feelings, that’s what hugs are for… sometimes a little harder from a distance.

I pray daily, multiple times a day to be honest, its part of my morning and evening rituals, and anytime I feel something is not in alignment with my goals, or is generating any type of feeling that is not working for me, I pray.

I have prayed for as long as I remember. From the time I was very little and I got stuck in the toilet, or lost in a restaurant, I prayed for help. I often prayed.

Prayer brings solace, and also brings a peace that you have made your request, it has been heard and it will work out in the best course for the entire universe. There is something humbling and beautiful about that knowledge, in the moment and a peaceful serenity that lingers after.

It is worth mentioning at this time, I have had thousands of prayer warriors pray for me over the past years, I have felt their energy, their strength there resolve, there hopes, there dreams and touched all of their hearts, and it is awe inspiring to realize how many points of light we have on this planet, and how prayer connects us all. Thank you individually, and collectively to everyone of you for your prayers, they are welcome, and have helped me on my journey.

Please pray.

Learning

Good Choices – 5 Meditation

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I remember learning meditation early., as a part really of long time prayer. I remember the concept and the art of it sticking with me, but I don’t think the benefit ever really soaked into my skin until my 20s.

I relearned meditation as a part of my religious and spiritual journeys. I remember meditating for two weeks on a single thing, a very odd mundane thing, from a book I had read.

Meditation is one of those things, that is extremely profound., but you can’t learn it from someone else. Its also one of those things that is so easy to forget, or rather chose that its not time vs reward based. This is short sighted., or atleast is so for me.

I have found, over the course of my life that meditation is always beneficial, even if it just ends up being a short nap in the short term.

Getting back into a meditation practice seems to take me about 2 weeks worth of daily dedication before my meditations actually turn into something that is tangible, and feels significant. It doesn’t matter whether they are 5/10 minutes of time or 20/40 minutes of time, what matters is the daily commitment to myself.

Even if they do just turn into a nap, its completely restorative time that does nothing for you except make you feel better, more grounded, and as if you are able to conquer the world.

When it works, when I get into the zone, where meditation is what I’m actually doing for the bulk of the time, when I finish the meditation more alive, more awake less asleep than I started, when I am not groggy coming out of the meditation, I feel the power and source and strength of my whole. My heart is balanced.

I’ve been using a tool a friend recommended over a year ago – closer to 2 years at this point, a phone app called Insight timer This app is a wonder, I’m certain there are others, but this one is free, and has an incredible source of great guru that are meditating daily on a variety of helpful subjects that provide the opportunity to utilize someone else strength to guide you to your own. It also has a great structure for newbie meditators, as it has alot of 5 minute meditations, that will help you slowly build up time. The best part is that if a voice or a thought doesn’t resonate with you, you turn it off and search again.

I meditate on a biomat. https://www.biomat.com/ These things are not a cheap investment, however, my intuition led me to them, and my pocketbook yelled kicking and screaming for more than a year before I broke down and purchased. I will sing their praises forever, and highly recommend them to anyone.

Its basically a glorified heating pad, that is made of amethyst crystal shards covered in a conductive material. It has a timer, and the heat is able to be set from slightly below body temp, to quite warm. They make a full body one, and a travel one that is basically neck and back.

Crystals are interesting things, they have a resonance to them. Amethyst crystals resonate with raw potential. They amplify energy. As I am using them for meditation, they are amplifying the energy that I am working with for my healing and higher good. They have a frequency that naturally works with healing, it helps tune your chakras into that frequency, and while I will not say that it makes life easier or better in and of themselves, I feel my meditations are significantly enhanced thru use of this mat.

It is very hard to quantify the improvement thru meditation, and very easy to be skeptical. It is also very easy to say “I will do this work” and then not realize its benefit.

I have come to realize that part of my healing requires me to “do the work” not just physical, but mental, emotional and spiritual. This daily meditation is part of my spiritual, mental and emotional “work”.

I do not take this job lightly, it is my life. Enjoying living it and living it to the fullest is my top goal and priority.

Most of the meditations I am focusing on lately are oddly not about healing but about forgiveness. My meditation practice, as well as a healing session with a healer recently made me aware of the fact that forgivingness for myself is something that it would be good to clear and practice on, and the bounty of the reward for meditation has been producing its 10 fold results, in very short order. I feel better, stronger and healthier.

Now time to go tackle my morning, my last radiation treatment and the happiness in my life.

Cancer, Learning

Cancer Part Three of Four

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In this, part 3, I’m going to explore a concept, a truth, and a come to the edge of the cliff realization, all of which took place along my journey, and are still impacting my journey today. I am going to speak, in raw truth terms in this blog, and this will be my only qualification for the fact that everyone has different conditions, everyone has different truths, and this will not be a true telling for every other person – only for me. So when you read my propaganda about cancer, know that it is 100% my truth, but it does not necessarily reflect every other 100% cancer survivor, nor would I ever claim to be an expert on anyone else state or cancer than my own.

First, lets talk about Cancer. “They” – we are not going to discuss they, just call them they – this isn’t a judgemental term, just a common term to mean “us, and those other people with more knowledge than us or whatever agenda is available, good bad indifferent…”… They used to say that cancer was a genetic disease. And while, there is an element of genetics (Think laws of natural selection in terms of mother natures ability to control excess population or weed out weakness in preditors) to cancer. Overall, cancer is NOT a genetic disease. Cancer is a metabolic disease.

I’m not going to assume you know what a metabolic disease is, I certainly didn’t, and the concept of this was mind baffling to me. I am pretty sure you probably have heard about metabolism, as the majority of us are obese, fat, or generally well aware of how metabolism impacts life. Sufficed to say, that cancer is a disease that develops, thrives and impacts the body based upon metabolic conditions.

Our bodies are strong, our genes are strong. We are subjected thru this great planet many times every day to cancer. Our body just kills it.

What allows tumors to grow, is poor life choices, and damage to our bodies that is precancerous.

We are humans, we make a billion choices every day. Mentally, Physically, emotionally, consciously, unconsciously, spiritually. Turn left, get the latte, eat the sandwich, walk the dog, shut the door… all of these life choices, can be qualified by ourselves, and our bodies as falling into 3 categories.

Good decisions, the ones that lead towards your goals, that push you ahead in the right way, and even sometimes though they are painful in the moment the lingering good out of them is usually resonate and far outweighing of the momentary discomfort.

Bad decisions, these often feel good in the moment, but usually there is a negative emotion attached with everyone, as we have learned how to feel guilty about these, or learned to hold onto fear, or concern or doubt. So even though these momentarily feel good, they are not good, they are not good for us and generally they produce harm.

Neutral decisions. These are the ones that are tricky. Sometimes they have elements we know to be bad, but often times have elements we know to be good. They are coping mechanism decisions often.

Cancer develops by making too many bad decisions. The location of cancer, is directly related to the area of our lives in which are are making too many bad decisions, there is not a randomness to the development of cancer tumors. Bad decisions weaken the body in specific areas, these bad decisions allow weak cancer cells to form clusters, huddle, wait for us to make more bad decisions, where they are able to develop an ecosystem, and thrive, build giant tumor cities, and spread out to other weakened systems.

The most insidious part about cancer cells is that they are not some foreign invader. They are our own cells, that we, thru bad decisions have mutated into cancer cells. This is both a beautiful and a frightening thing to realize. Beautiful because in a way, they are our bodies natural method for trying to sustain us, the human in a terrible environment of poor choices, a way to harness all those bad decisions into something that thrives. Frightening because with this ultimate power of responsibility for our decisions, comes the power to turn this around, and to remove these bad patterns, bad habits, and bad decision making in order to allow our body to heal this cancer.

One thing to mention, decisions are intimately personal. What is a “good” decision for me, Alethia, in my life. Maybe a horrible bad decision for you. And visa versa. This makes it very difficult to come to a common ground on how do I fix this problem, once you identify it, because the fix for one person, is likely never going to be identical to another. This is why western medicine has issues, they are trained to look for patterns, and to base all treatment on statistics. Choices, while there are “some” that are pretty obvious overriding things, generally there are more controlling decisions that are hidden truth.

I will go as far to say, that developing a tumor is a spiritual experience we make with our body. I have come to realize that my cancer is a pact, I formed an agreement with my body, and it was not until recent weeks and months, in realizing this agreement that I needed to negotiate and take back control and tell cancer its time is passed.

A few obvious facts about cancer that are worth sharing, to improve some basic “good” decision factors.

Cancer cells can’t just thrive. Their need sugar as their food source. Our diet, the western diet, is so fraught and overrun with sugar, it is impossible as being able to see it as much of anything other than a cancer breeding ground. As someone, who has spent the past 12 months removing all sugar from her diet, I can tell you it is ridiculously hard to do this. There is virtually nothing you can leave on auto pilot if your goal is to starve out existing cancer cells from getting the food source of cancer. Including places and things you previously varied as being “safe” are not always going to stay or be safe. Vigilance and a pattern of verification on everything you put into your mouth is necessary.

Cancer cells are weak cells. They are not difficult to kill. The body has the tools to kill them, it has the knowledge, one just has to make the difficult and vigilant decisions to help the immune system, the microbiome, the lymph system, and generally stop giving cancer things that allow it to be strong. There are some great resources on this, the Keto (anti sugar) community has some great tools. There are also alot of “nutritionally how to kill cancer” that also will point out alot of details.

There is an awesome quote, that one of the many sources of good information about naturally curing cancer I have come across gives – its from https://www.chrisbeatcancer.com/ which has been an inspirational source of information, and well worth the financial investment. The quote is, that basically if your body makes it your body has the power to heal it. This is intimately true for cancer.

Most recently, I had a second MRI, that showed significantly bad progression in the tumors in my brain. I also had a CT and a Bone scan, that showed the rest of the cancer in my body is pretty non-existent – meaning they could barely make out the cells that had the cancer, and they showed no active cancer anywhere other than my brain. Armed with this knowledge, and the continuing advancement of my symptoms. I sought out my favorite Radiation Oncologist.

This time, he was very willing to approach a treatment I had initially asked him to consider in Feb when my first MRI was done, a targeted treatment of radiation to my cerebellum. We started that 9 days ago, today I go for treatment 9 of 10. I can tell you that knowing what I know about cancer, and radiation, I am having stellar results. I will go for follow up scans in early July both MRI (July 3) CT/Bone scan (July 11) – to check the state of my union. The radiation is helping, it is killing the tumors in the cerebellum – the bulk of my issue, as well as killing all the blood vessels that cancer has developed to support the other tumors in my brain that live in this area. Everyday, I feel tired from the treatment, but I also feel empowered, renewed and I feel as if I now have the information to move past Cancer. This may not be my only treatment. But I do feel it is miraculously more helpful than any of the other conventional medical treatments I have had to date. … and this is honestly a change in perspective for me.

I have some more to say about cancer, and the agreements that we make that allow it to form tumors, but I feel this part 3 is complete, and Part 4 will be over the next period of time, as I remove the cancer from my body and show miraculous positive results.

I know feel I have the keys as it were to unlocking the spiritual, emotional, and mental reasons I developed cancer, and allowed it to have a place to thrive in my body. I feel like I know understand these like a 3 year old learns, I do not have them mastered yet, but I am well on the way to learning how to do this, I know what I need, and I know where and how to get it. I am uplifted and excited, its probably not going to be a super fast process, but everyday I will feel better, stronger, and thrive. Cancer will go off to the west, and leave my body for good. The power of good choices is super important.

The biggest take away I would like to make sure that I have conveyed in this blog. Cancer is less than 50% physical. All the physical treatments in the world can only be as effective as your soul and heart are at helping. I needed to stop building cancer with my soul and heart in order for the treatments to thrive, and allow me to thrive.

Healing, Learning

Good Choice – 4 (Shhh Veganism)

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I’m a little torn in writing this blog. I have done Vegetarianism in the past, and dabbled a little bit for short periods of my life in Veganism. – For various reasons at the time, most of which intimately personal and having very little to do with most of the reasons people tend to “go vegan” or go “vegetarian”

With cancer, there is an amino acid – Glutamine, that is helpful for rapid cell growth and proliferation. Unfortunately, its nearly next to impossible to “remove” this super vital nutrient from the body. It is however, possible to significantly reduce its impact, and availability. Thru removing Meat & Dairy.

I did a somewhat/loosely phrased Keto Vegan diet for about 6 months. This was after being diagnosis as having the cancer in my brain. My intuition lead me to remove the meat and the dairy from my diet.

For me this was a drastic change. I can tell you that generally, overall; at the specific time, it was a super good choice. It cased a profound and very intimate thing in my body, and life.

I have always been a dairy girl, I still miss my greek yogurt alot, as well as some of my many favorite cheese friends.

Dairy also produces an inflammatory response in the body, gastro and otherwise. Inflammation is the bread and butter of misery related to cancer. It causes the pain, and the soreness. I do feel that removing the meat and dairy, while very mentally challenging and unpleasant did afford me the extra time to get to the place I am now.

Giving up something to which you have grown comfortable and attached is a healthy thing. It teaches us balance and humanity.

I don’t know that I will always be vegan, infact I suspect that my time with these things is limited. They were very good choices at the time, and they maybe good choices for a time still. But I enjoy dairy, and my body does better with some of the meats – particularly missing fish. I do think I have learned alot along this journey about food.

I do also think that this has taught me how to incorporate a lot more veggies and variety of veggies into my diet in healthy and propitious methods. How to center a meal around veggies and healthy foods, vs just staples of a meat and dairy.

Veganish has this thing with it, that I didn’t subscribe to – with so so much tofu. Tofu is not a good choice for me. Tofu in the USA is GMO, and I will say that GMO does not feel like a good choice for pretty much anyone but I know it is a poor choice for me. I have tried pea protein powder, and one of my biggest struggles with keeping veganism a healthy good choice is NOT being a nutritionist. And recognizing the need for protein, but not feeling competent in insuring I have enough of it.

So maybe its a thing to say that while Veganism maybe a super good choice for alot of people, maybe I’m just not the poster child for it.

Its a good choice for me now, and I’ll continue to follow it – not quite as religiously as others — My indian place has this amazing paneer – not at all vegan, and makes me gastro miserable for like 2-3 days, but tastes so good, and makes my body happy.

I have found myself cheating with little things, not huge amounts, but like “oh that had an egg in it…. or that had a tablespoon of butter”…

I will tell you that once you have been “clean” of meat and dairy for 4 weeks, you will feel EVERY time you eat some of any variety. Whether the sauce had meat stock, or the pancake had butter. Your tummy will tell you, sometimes you can taste – depending upon how good the quality of the product being prepared is – but tummy doesn’t lie.

I will say from the good choice perspective, my stomach much prefers the company of any vegetable over any dairy or meat. its just happier all around. Things go in, and go out in a much more predictable manner, and overall my digestive system works like clockwork, and seamlessly. Its one of the many advantages of Veganism.

I think there is a lot of room in this Vegan headspace for Keto or rather, low carb no sugar to be brought out more, and given more raised awareness.

I feel I did a bit, but not really enough, having to eat to survive.

So in the short – Veganism – Good choice for now, maybe change in 6 months or so.

Healing, Learning

Good Choice 3 – ACUPUNCTURE

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Okay so I should say, I have had a … issue / fear with needles my entire life. I have never liked them. However, that being said, one of the things I have been aware of is the debilitating ness of fear, and its self disempowerment.

Armed with this knowledge, years ago – maybe 7 or 8 I worked hard to come to more rationale state with my discomfort/fear of needles. To this end, I visited an acupuncturist and got an introduction to it as a healing modality.

Acupuncture is based upon the meridian in the body. It is fundamentally an eastern healing method. It utilizes the energy and strength inherent in the body to fix any stoppages or blocks within that energy that keep things flowing well and fluidly.

Lets talk about this more fundamentally. Our bodies are designed to work perfectly. We often do things that make this perfection work less well. Acupuncture is a specific approach to fixing these bad choices.

I started doing Acupuncture as a part of my self healing protocol around the same time as therapy. I started going weekly.

I have alot ot say about how powerful this experience has been, and the fact that hands down it not only works, it has saved me many times.

Every week I go for a approximately 20-45 minute treatment. Everytime I feel better, stronger and healthier. There have been times I have gotten a cold, gone in gotten a treatment and immediately felt better.

There have been times I have gone in after chemo or after other treatments and felt “bad” the acupuncture treatment has fixed this “bad” and I leave feeling great.

Over one year of treatments, I can say I have never had a mediocre treatment, never had an experience where I didn’t leave feeling more empowered and resonant than before.

I can also controversial speak of the very very few times I have missed a treatment….. going more than 3 weeks without a treatment I didn’t notice, but I did notice that going back it helped fix things I hadn’t noticed were out of wack.

I am honestly enough of a poster child for this treatment, that places I visit on the regular I have a “back up acupuncturist I see”. I always ask for a recommendation for a therapist/office I can see while I travel, but sometimes for one week its just not possible/reasonable to go.

I would highly recommend this good choice for everyone as a small self care thing, that everyone should be doing. It makes doing other smart decisions easier. Making things easier seems like something all of us want.

As to what the actual treatment feels like. …. really it doesn’t feel like much. You laydown, the therapist goes around your body, takes notes, you tell them what you are feeling and needing, they put in needles. You do feel the initial touch from the person, ideally you don’t really feel the needle, and if you do you speak up, the therapist adjusts it and you don’t feel it. They are very very small, and its this crazy thing, they sit in your body, but you don’t really know they are there. They will put them all over your body, to get to the pathways and organ systems. You will feel energy moving, if you are sensitive.

I have a great acupuncturist, that I can’t speak highly enough about, she is AMAZING. Everytime she does a treatment I feel a sense of “complete” when she puts in all the points. If I feel anything missing, anywhere on my body, some spots will itch or sort of burn telling me “hey mention this to her, and ask about what its serving”…. and she will usually put a point in those spots, and I will feel it connect to the other points she has done.

Overtime, I get a sense of when she has finished putting points in, because I feel “set” sort of like doing a perm or a hair color when the hairstylist sits back and goes “time to set”… I don’t’ know if this is from the points themselves or from the feeling from the therapist, I honestly didn’t think too much about it.

I just know, then she leaves me for x amount of time, I lay down and take a nap, because basically I’m just meditating with these things in, and then she comes back and removes them and I leave.

It feels amazing. I usually nap while they are in, sometimes the music keeps me awake, I usually have her use some aromatherapy while she does this, but one of the travel spots doesn’t really do that.

Some Acupuncturist do other things – some are herbalist, some use other healing modalities also. But overall, the acupuncture is the “reason” you are going, and its just incredible.

Most insurances cover some version of this, so I would recommend checking into that first, my particular acupuncturist is a specialist in cancer treatment. Meaning she knows the points to help me deal with side effects and also help my body be strong to kill off the cancer. If you are experiencing a particular physical problem I’d recommend finding one with that speciality. Overall, I would just recommend trying it out for a period of time for yourself, and make notes and reflect how it makes you feel.

I feel this is a super strong good decision, and I also feel if I had any friends or family with Cancer, this and a therapist would be the first on the treatment list.

Healing, Learning

Good Choices 2 – Therapy

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So these good choices, are apparently going to be so inspiring so as to wake me from a sound speak with the need to be told.

Good choice that I would probably actually call number one, even though its showing up as number 2 which has a lot of ironic things in my world, but I have to say, call it one or two or call it overall “OMG ITS MOST IMPORTANT” one. It woke me, from a sound and restful sleep with a need to be told.

Good choice number 2 is a Therapist. A Psychologist that you pay money, weekly to sit down and listen to you whine, bitch, scream, cry, laugh or just lament about all the good, bad, amazing and life altering things that are going on in your life.

First I would like to point out, that anyone that knows me very much at all, would very easily laugh at me calling this a good choice.

I have been very very self aware for a long time, and I have a very profoundly well developed ego. So in my world, in my life I viewed this as a truly unnecessary thing. Fate tried, thru kind small movies and actions to lead to release the error of my ways. There are alot of really good Youtube and Ted Talks about how important this is, and how it really somewhat relates to having a bandaid on a bleeding wound. Having a therapist is just a no brainer.

It wasn’t until I had a recurrence of my cancer, and found a study in Germany that found that 85% of woman with a recurrent of hormone responsive therapies, being a particular personality type, and that personality type being Type C – which effectively means “people pleasers that are resentful – that please other people at the detriment of their own needs, goals, and aspirations, and recognize these as bad, but keep doing it anyway”

It wasn’t until I read this, and realized that wow, 85% meant it was “probably me” and the type C didn’t seem so far off from me to be a possibility and to recognize that after 46 years if I didn’t have a fix for this, maybe I need to at least consider that I wasn’t as much an expert as I’d thought, and maybe I needed to at least consult with someone who had spent their life work finding truth in life.

For me, Therapy started as me hunting for a therapist that was covered under my insurance, was less than 5 miles from my home, and had a Doctor – a PHD. Because personally, that vanity aspect, if I figured if I was going to talk to someone and share myself with them, they were going to have done enough annoying schooling and jumped thru enough hopes to be “qualified”. I figured a reporte was something that would come later.

In my findings, I happened to have a comical experience at first, because apparently my DR – there are 2 with the same last name, both doctors both covered under my insurance and both 5 minutes away from my house, and my GPS took me to the wrong doctor the first day. She was super kind, and while it was clearly not the right office, it was an office that could also have been the right office.

When I found my doctor, the one I had made the appointment with we laughed about this experience that first day and instantly a reporte was built.

I have been seeing this doctor weekly for over a year. And I can honestly tell you two things. One I have never had a bad therapy experience. There has never been a time, when the hour was up that I did not wish for more time, and that I did not l,eave in a lighter, happier more profoundly fulfilling space than I started. I have walked thru alot of dark places, and shared alot of really intensive information, but it has hands down always felt better to share it.

Second thing, I can honestly say, that this single step is one of the most critical steps for curing cancer, and for helping me as a person. I feel better after these sessions.

Its also worth mentioning for those with no therapy experience, and I can not speak to anyone else, or any other experience, or any other therapist, but I would imagine that my experience is how much “should” probably go. She doesn’t talk much. In the course of our meetings, our discourses, 90% of the talking is all me. Unlike my fears, or expectations she did not have a crystal ball of knowledge that she felt the need to share to “fix” something that was wrong or broken with me. There isn’t anything wrong or broken with me, I’m just fine the way I am. Her job this entire process has been to allow me to have a voice. To be heard. To speak my truth, and to hear it back myself. The few words or times she has spoken, has been to reframe or offer an alternative to how my thought process has evolved. To allow me to see a different perspective about something I am so sure is correct. This different perspective has always been without any agenda or intent, and I have felt quite confident that it would not have made any difference to her if I agreed or disagreed with her opinion and shared information. I am paying her for a service, and that service is to listen to me share my thoughts, privately and selectively and unbiasedly with her. I did not realize how critical this was, I did not realize how life altering this was, and I didn’t realize just like all those ted talks told me years ago, how much my world would improve by just these small baby steps.

Every week I go to her, spend my 35$ copay – at this point free since I have met my out of pocket deductible for the year, and I am so so thankful the universe put this in my path. I feel I will cure my cancer, and I feel I have learned so much about it and myself thru these simple little one hour of my own effort of nothing more than conversation, every week.

Please find a therapist, please go schedule an appointment and please go regularly. Mental health is not a small thing, it controls your entire universe.

Good Choice.

And now I’ve blogged and I can go back to my sound sleep – more good choices to come over more days, I’m super happy to be able to share this one, and the future ones, maybe they will let me get back to my part 3 of the cancer blog again soon <3