I’m going to have surgery. Dec 10th to be exact. Going to have a full hysterectomy. Originally the discussion was about just doing an ovary removal, the surgeon has encouraged the full hysterectomy and after some review, consideration, general prayer, and practical intuition I was led to the general opinion that this is for the best.

There are several reasons.

First, after several years of avoiding/opting out of the genetic testing for cancer, I went ahead and pursued it, only to find I am in the 1%. Yes, you heard me right. I won the proverbial lottery sports fans. It was wildly believed years ago that cancer was a genetic disease, however it has recently been widely confirmed that it is generally a metabolic disease – meaning not so much genes as lifestyle controlling whether or not you get cancer.

The particular gene which I am in this rare minority of cancer sufferers to have, is also one of the more rare genetic mutations. Its one that causes a 14% increased risk of Ovarian Cancer (as well as 5% increased risk of breast cancer – but I am still of a quite consistently content mind that my particular cancer was caused from too many poor lifestyle choices catching up with me)

This is one of the reasons for the surgery. About the worst possible comically morbidly sad thing would be for me to be completely successful at eliminating all of the breast cancer in my body, only to have my body spontaneously develop ovarian cancer. No Ovaries, no ovarian cancer.

My particular breast cancer is triple positive. This means it has a plethora of food sources in my body, and the most prevalent and common is hormones, which I’m really not able to control. My body has done a bang up job my entire life of producing much and many more of these than I have ever needed, and my cancer has found them as a buffet of a food source. The particular chemos I am doing right now, struggle at blocking off the cancer, but with the fact that the cancer in the brain doesn’t seem to particularly be overly receptive to the chemo, or rather I’m just too healthy to allow the chemo to act on the brain, eliminating this food source is sort of a really good idea if your goal is to slow down and starve cancer.

Also practically speaking, I’m over 45. I have had radiation, and chemo for many years at this point. Prior to the first chemo they did warn me about the fact that if i were planning to have children, it was probably the best choice to fast track that at that moment. While it isn’t that I ever really decided to not have children, I feel alot more comfortable in the decision that its not something that is going to happen this lifetime for me. I have recently recognized and embraced the concept that while it wasn’t a conscious decision on my part, I am pretty consciously happy with the decision. Its not so much that I have any issues specifically with children more that I am acutely comfortable with never being personally responsible for their rearing or parenting.

The surgeon, in our discussions pointed out that the difference in the surgery for the ovary removal, or the full hysterectomy is a 7 minute difference of time. The surgery is a laparoscopic surgery, meaning they will open 5 small holes across my abdomen, inflate my stomach, and then use cameras to remove the parts, and perform the surgery. I will have 5 scars about the size of my port across my stomach.

The ovaries are supported by the fallopian tubes, and the uterus. While the ovaries have many functions in my body, the tubes & the uterus are somewhat sympathetic organs that work with the ovaries to assist in reproduction and growing babies. As these are not things I intend to do, it makes sense to remove them to prevent a dormant organ from producing possible negative things in my already compromised body.

The odd thing about all this logical things, about this entire thought, is that I’m weirdly happy about this surgery. I can’t imagine a time or a thing of being “happy” to have a surgery like this, but I am, somehow overly happy about the prospect that I’m doing this… It was suggested to me today by my psychologist that maybe its my feeling like I’m taking the attack on the the offensive, maybe I’m being proactive, and I feel that maybe this is accurate. I felt this same way, happy about doing keto… where I was starving the cancer of sugar. There is something cathartic about feeling like some part of your body is causing you more harm than good, and feeling like you have the power to slow it down, or break it or remove it.

So while I am apprehensive and casually optimistic about this surgery, overall I am weirdly happy to be having it upcoming. Now my focus is just still recovering from the radiation and chemo to make a fast recovery from the surgery.

I have been finding some things with balance more prevalent lately. I made a promise to my doctor that if/when a fall actually occurs, I’ll look at walker options or some type of cane to help me be steadier. Its rather a difficult thing to consider, particularly when I’ve just always been overly clumsy the entirety of my life.

Some of the other symptom things that are less, actively visible, but equally troubling are the difficulty in finding the right words more frequently. Again, this is something I’ve had the entirety of my life, however now it is often occuring where I don’t’ notice I spoke or typed the wrong word, and the word I was intending is no where near my mind. Pulling words has become significantly harder, and what I mean by this is that I have always had a very robust mental library system of cataloguing concepts and phrases, and when a word has been misplaced I have been able to locate it thru many filing cabinets of knowledge that were linked. My brain is not working the same anymore, and while the filing cabinets are still there, and I still have access to them, they are scatterbrained, it takes longer if I’m able to use them and often times the information is just not there. Luckily I recognize this is partially chemo, partially radiation, partially age, and partially cancer. Not just a one hit wonder type of thing, and there is also very precious little that it is worth doing anything other than “letting it go” and moving on to something else.

Living in the moment has somewhat become more of a mantra. I still have tons of personality tendencies that want to drive me towards planning or organizing or dewling in what will becoming, and what I have learned in the past, but somehow these brain things are helping me spend more time just being in the present.

Hopefully things will work out like I hope, and I’ll just keep on finding new things to fight the good fight for a much longer period of years. Because of the surgery, I’ve opted to go against my previous decision, and I’ll be getting new scans before the end of the year, this way I can see what happens in a few months from the surgery by having a good baseline from around/before its impact.

Since I have started this blog, the title has nearly always come first. Today I feel like talking, but I’m not sure precisely where I’m going with these thoughts. There are some things I went to document for myself, that while they aren’t new concepts or strange things, they somehow link together and form this interesting quilt in my head right now, and I want to remember them.

First, energy, neither created nor destroyed, it just is, and it changes form, shape and position. It doesn’t go away, it just moves to somewhere else.

Second, concept of what you surround yourself with you get more of…. Like the adage that the people you surround yourself with, your closest friends are a reflection of what you are… Like begets like…. Yawns are contagious, tired makes tired, happy makes happy… it all coalesced into a sameness in a particular spot.

Third concept, self care. Fastening your own seat belt, or putting on your own oxygen before you try and help others. It logically makes sense, but its a concept I struggle with sometimes, because Love makes me feel that someone else is more worth of my efforts for saving than necessarily myself.

So, I have all of these loving well meaning people in my life, that thru the nature of my situation, and condition “ARE” my “people” I am spending my time with them more and more, day in and day out, and it means that reflexively I am a reflection of them… their ideals, their strengths, their weaknesses. There struggles are mine, as mine are theirs.

We are all connected, all aligned, that concept of energy is so true, it isn’t lost or seperate. We are all connected. When the mother is rushing to an appt, and she cuts you off, and nearly causes an accident, when the guy is distracted by a song on the radio and almost runs into the pedestrian. When we hear or see someone do something we know they shouldn’t have, or maybe it causes us to feel someway we would rather not. We are all connected. These things are not random, they are not chance. They are energy.

Lifeforce, and a reminder that just because we are having an XYZ – maybe its good maybe its bad, day… someone else maybe having a ABC day, that is not ours to experience, but somehow with us having our day and them having their day, its all connected.

There is a balance in life. For every action there is an opposite reaction. (Physics)

Life is filled with small little moments of time, where we make choices. Each of these choices has an impact on us, and a ripple to our circle of influence, and then outwards to the circles of influence that our energy impacts. Whether its with our words, spoken in harsh tones, or our thoughts and actions in positive harmony of help. Each of us has an impact, each of us has a voice, we all are energy concentrated into a chaotic messy package of body, mind, heart and spirit.

Its not so much why we are this way… but what we will allow ourselves to do with this knowledge, this insight, this infinite cosmic power. We have infinite cosmic power, there is no limitation on what we “can” do… there are only limitations on what we believe we are capable of doing, and often the reasons for those are not only ambiguous, but false. The time for limitations was often in childhood to allow for growth. I suppose there is something to be said for the fact that we are always in childhood – as there is always someone older, wiser, and more mature than we are… but the limitations for safety of getting to adulthood are over.

I’m requesting the universe to attract more stronger healing energy my direction. I want people with this strength, that have healed, that are strong, that are healthy and that want to keep growing thru helping heal into my circle.

To people in my circle of influence I will echo the same drum, the best support you can give to me is to take care of yourself. Your energy example of self care is the love and sustenance I need to help me keep strong.

I started this place list called playlist for peace, its songs that somehow elicit that sense of value in me when they play, they aren’t necessarily the traditional ones, maybe some of them are, but some of them are a little off the reservation as it were.

Had the final radiation last week, and I have to say, as anticipated, planned, forecast, I feel pretty much like crap. While I recognize this is “all according to design” with the plan to compromise my immune system to allow the chemo today to get into the brain and help me fight this, it doesn’t change the fact that feeling like crap even when you understand the why and the goal, is still pretty rough.

We had more quiche the other day from the new bakery restaurant I found recently Papi’s Pies. So so good, and they make pies and croissants. I’ve been doing primarily keto for a long while now, with alot more flexibility in it, but steering generally away from carbs. With the radiation, its a pleasant thing to allow my body to indulge, or rather specific “carb loading” type of a frame for it. I got to have one of their strawberry rhubarb pie slices.

My grandmother on my fathers side was a cook she made the most amazing strawberry rhubarb, and I have been craving that for sometime, because its just not one of those things that most people make especially well. This pie from Papi’s was nostalgic and was the closest I’ve found to her crumble in terms of flavor profile of the strawberry and rhubarb. It was a few minutes of peaceful memories for me.

Have not felt much like doing much of anything the past few days, my body is weak and weary right now from the treatments, and this treatment today is no exception. I will have a couple weeks to relax, while trying to let it do its magic and I can focus on healing and getting strong.

One of the hardest things for me right now, is being weak. Its surprising to me how that breaks me down into tears. Trying to open a lid, that I sealed, so I know its not over tight, and struggling. Or trying to lift up a bed that I had lifted a few months back and didn’t struggle with. Or a clothes basket, or a pot, and just feeling my muscles struggle with the effort, somehow it just hits me at a core part of my being and makes me overcome with a wave of intense sadness that just doesn’t’ really have a good source or a good resolution.

I have faith, that the best possible outcome will be the result of all of these struggles. In my life, I have found over and over again, that the harder the struggle the greater the reward. The more I endured and suffered the more amazing the vistas at the end of the journey. I feel strongly this is no exception, and I try perpetually to take comfort in this knowledge.

There are many joys these days. Small little treasures that come to me in small presents of happiness. Spending time with my family, and just laughing, the pure bliss of being alive. The weather change, and watching Starbuck, my schipperke, run paces in the yard, the cold enhancing his feeling of being alive and thriving in this crazy place and time. The joy of amazon prime offering free delivery for whole foods, a god send of a method to fix a small problem I have been struggling with of not making my support system fetch and carry so much for me.

Overall life is good, I have my meditation/guest room being painted this week, we are getting Phil’s hot tub fixed, all for us, but also in time for our family gathering for Thanksgiving in a few weeks. Heard of another family member on Phil’s side that is going to make the trip, pretty excited, and we are still a little under the count for our plan.

I am thankful for all the people in my life that check in with me on Facebook, messenger, or any of the other medium to see how I’m doing, but its hard sometimes to answer you when I am doing so poorly and while I know you care, and I care so much about the fact that you took time, I don’t want to tell you I’m doing badly, even if it is for a reason of intent that I need to be doing badly so I can be doing much better again soon.

I am thankful for sunshine, and cold days, and OM chanting music to help me keep my chakra open and in alignment. Thank you universe for insights and intuitions and keeping me strong in spirit along this difficult physical road.

Enough for now, going to go enjoy some coffee, a sunrise, a meditation, and get ready for the chemo treatment today.

So I’m trying to remodel my …… I’m trying to decide what to call this room in my house that is “my” room. Its technically going to be a guest room, and it is and has been the place where people have come and stayed, with a semblance of blissful privacy I’d like to be able to provide. This room is also “my room” in terms of the room where I should be able to go to and be myself without judgement from anyone else or anything else.

That old adage “Go to your room”… I feel like while it was supposed to be a punishment, it was also a much needed time out and a place maybe more necessary for adults than even as a child, a place that is a respite where one can go to be just with ones thoughts. A meditation room of sorts maybe?

In anycase, I’m trying to get it painted, the first step along the path of a complicated remodel I’ve been debating/considering for about a year.

Its tough when you are me, and so strong willed and so self sufficient, or accustomed to being that way, and so independent… to do something like this… I know the things that need to occur, and the order, but I also am acutely aware that I don’t have the energy or reserves to do them, and that they just aren’t as important, the entire project is not as important as my “job” for healing myself. So when working on this project takes away from the job part, it has to stop and wait for a better time.

Time is something I don’t have alot of… I don’t know what that means, because honestly maybe I have more than some people that don’t even realize they have less, maybe I have less than some that feel they have more… who knows. I have an X factor of time, and I have alot of conditions that are striving to reduce my X factor by a Y factor. Knowing that I have an X and Y factor actually gives me more information than the average person who also has an X and a Y factor but does not’ have knowledge that they exist, and isn’t pressured by society or life to live according to them. Sufficed to say, my hourglass of time is something I’m acutely cognizant of… but trying not to focus on. I digress.

I’m working right now, on the “finding a painter” portion of this project. It took me a long time to have the “come to jesus conversation” with myself internally and give up the irrational hope of being able to do this job myself. I have embraced the fact that it will need to be something I commissioned to get it done. I have budgeted for this, and I took the first step of picking out the paint, and purchasing the paint. Which provided me with a list of painters looking for work. I got the first quote, and it was significantly more than I was expecting. This was a little disheartening. It took alot of mental acumen to put my ego in check and resign myself to hiring people to help, but for the quote to be double my expectation was frustrating. This however, was a blissful opportunity, and is turning out to be more and more so every day. The quote being so high, forced me to do something that in my “get it done fast get it done fast” mentality I haven’t really done of getting a second quote.

This is kinda a no brainer thing that smart people should do, I’m a smart people, but I have been … its not exactly lazy but maybe impatient? and not done this in the past. I have suffered due to this impatience. Its time for that to be over. So, now we get a quote, and I suck it up buttercup and just have a little longer to find out if my expectations were way off base, or if the particular place I had quote was just super high.

In the course of the time, between the deciding to get a second quote, scheduling the second quote, it has come to my attention that there may actually be a great painter in my midst of allies, that might also use this work.

A and I went to the festival for Dwali in down town round rock on Saturday. I could write another whole post about this experience, and how it was … in boiled down version, a mcdonalds version of my experiences in India. Festivals in India are part of what keeps their culture, their societal acceptable things, and generally keeps them able to maintain happiness, all of these are great, this festival was a fast food version, mini fast, and less satisfying than the original, but it was sustenance, and it was camaraderie, and it served the purpose of connecting people all seeking for that feeling of heart, soul, and connection together in one place humbled by the joy of laughing children enjoying the bliss of being alive running around in beautiful colored garments. It was Fun, it was great to catch up with A… She mentioned, when we escaped the festival and went to the local Indian restaurant for dinner, that her sister in law does this type of work…. So maybe I’ll have the perfect fit for this job after all.

Today, the painter for the second quote came. He came before heading to another job, and he honored my request to give the guys time for their morning coffee and quiet time, and this was a huge thing, and I was appreciative.

In discussions, it was an amazing experience. His wife, passed away 2 years ago from a condition where cancer had spread to her brain, thru her lymphatic system. He is still coping with the loss, and I in my typical intuitive fashion forced out tears from someone for emotions they were and have been holding onto that needed to have voice so they could return to bliss and joy. Go Shiva. We talked, he cried, I cried, he gave me a quote for the painting. The quote was about what I was expecting for the job. He left, I hope a little happier than he was before he came.

I don’t know if I will go with him for the job or not, but the feeling was great from the experience. and the whole point of this blog was to share the following.

In the course of my struggles, my demons internally that tell me its time to give up, its time to be done, there isn’t any purpose left for me… in the course of me telling them I have purpose, there are times, when the universe/god/spirit… whatever you call that higher power that is our essence and driving force for being here, does me a solid. I pray daily, and meditate for direction and a sense of being and some sign that I have purpose. I believe I do, I believe I still have a job here on this earth, and that is why I’m alive not dead. But sometimes, when I have doubts…. I get to meet someone like this man, this painter today, and I get to give him a brief moment of solace. And I get to feel that my job isn’t’ done. My purpose is still quite active, and I have tasks that I will still be getting, they will come to me when I am ready to handle them, and I will approach them just as I’m able, and trained.

We all bring a light to this world, we all have a story to share, and this was my chance to share that story. The painter guy, made me crack up and smile when he said, “I wish my wife had looked as good as you do after fighting for a year” — Yeah my ego smirked and laughed a little inside, but the fact is he humbled me with his comment that I’m doing okay.

Today is a good day.

Prologue to this post: This post was originally drafted Sept 30th. Or atleast the first portion was, I was struggling on that day to finish this posting, as for whatever reason, the first part was there, but the rest of the blog just… well, I drafted 2 pages 4 times, and deleted them each time, because I felt like they were things I was selectively deciding not to share. Anyone who knows me, knows this is an atypical thing for me. I am and have always been one of the most singularly oversharing people I have ever known. It has come to my attention in my healing that sometimes that is detrimental to me on an emotional and psychological level, not to mention often obviously taxing on the people around me.

I chose in this moment, in September to honor this wish of my institution and just not share. In discussing with my psychologist after this point, I realize this was both a wise and a timely decision. Sometimes, things, even good random things are just for me. I don’t have to share them for them to be good.

With that prologue provided, this post will be a little bit in two parts, the part that I kept from 9/30 and the part that I added today, and the part that I added today 10/18. Hopefully I can successfully navigate my brain enough to make them fit together somehow. Here goes nothing!

9/30

“Slow down! Life is to be savoured!” This is a quote, from one of my mmorpg games, in an expansion that happened to be one of my favorites. It had other really good priceless gems of quotes too, like: “Family. Friends. Food. These are what matter most.” or “May you find mastery in your passions.” Somehow, these random quotes, that the non-player characters would speak in the game in this particular expansion have resonated with me thru time.

This week, was definitely a week of savouring life.

My sister had a birthday this week, and we had decided to spend the day together, just the two of us. It was an amazing day, but it was most amazing because we truly did nothing. We sat, chatted and made Chai tea. There wasn’t anything profound in any of the conversation, we talked, we listened, we shared, we sipped.

It was an extremely satisfying exchange, and felt good. It was a good day. This week, was actually full of good days. This is a blessing that it is definitely worth celebrating.

A couple of interesting things came up for me this week, in terms of learning about myself. I feel, this is my job, to learn, evolve, develop and become a better person. This week, I learned about myself.

10/18

Its been a few short weeks, and the things I have learned about myself are innumerable. I have learned that I am the reason my cancer is not gone. Pausing this blog was a first step at honoring things, good things, inside myself that have always been diminished by my almost obsessive need to share too much. Some things are empowering if you hold onto them, and let them light your path.

I have learned that medical testing, although datapoint physical necessary is quite counter to my emotional quota of ability to stay positive. This is something I’m developing tools on, because it is exceptionally counter productive for me to have to do testing for a status report on my physical condition only have the testing itself do more damage than the cancer.

Case in point. I have had a recent rescan of CT, Bone scan, MRI. 2 out of 3 aint bad. The CT shows no active or new cancer with in my body. The Bone Scan shows the active cancer in my sternum is stable, meaning it has not grown or progressed further. The MRI shows that 3 of the tumors, one which was specifically radiated in June, have grown. One of these, significantly, in my cerebellum region, almost doubling in size since the scan in July.

This news is hard to hear, hard to take, hard to do these tests, it is very hard to stay optimistic and positive when what these tests basically boil down to on a physical level for me is that my body is “too healthy” for the chemo to impact the blood brain barrier enough to impact the cancer in my brain and prevent it from feeding off the hormones it so covets. To this end, it means another round of radiation on these 3 spots, and likely 2 other ones in the process for a total of 5 spots, to help weaken the cancer, and doing this within a short period of time of the chemo to try and force a lower enough immune response to let the chemo get into my brain and do its magic on the cancer there. The particular chemo I’m taking right now, it specifically designed to target hormone positive chemos, mine is triple positive – very aggressive cancer, because the food source for this cancer that I’m not really able to regulate or control well is the hormones, and my cancer just eats those up. This chemo works to target the receptors of the cancer and block them from absorption. This makes the cancer weaker, as does the radiation, and while my body will be weaker during these treatments, it should also help identify the cancer more easily to my immune system and allow my body to target and attack the already double wammy weakened cells.

All of this is extremely unpleasant to think about, first the cancer growing so much in such a short time is very discouraging emotionally and a huge ego blow. How did this happen? What did I do that made this happen? Where did I fall off or fail? But more than that, why did I do the MRI at all lol – because I felt great before I knew the cancer was suddenly bigger… and it has to be more than the power of positive energy it has to be more like now that I have a visual my visualizations kills are superior to my positive hopeful skills. This is something I can work on.

I don’t want to do more radiation, however I recognize the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Radiation is definitely an enemy to cancer. Chemo is also an enemy to cancer. While neither of them is my friend, they will allow my immune system to exploit and manipulate the cancer into submission.

I have recognized that there are certain emotional tools that I have had my entire life, that are no longer serving me at this time. I am in the process of changing them. Some of these seem almost in opposition to how I did things previously, and they are all a little bit tricky to master, but I do feel that I must. I feel that my body has been holding onto the cancer as serving a need for me to do things better with other areas of my life.

Life is a balance, and there are precious few things in life that are definitely right or wrong. Most things are completely subjective to the person, experiences, and moment. So Right and Wrong, Good vs Bad comes down to the subjective experience of the individual in the breath when its being evaluated. Having this knowledge about myself has helped me work on repathing some of my natural filters to help me recognize some patterns in my life that have expired, and lived beyond their useful shelflife. This is a struggle, as the best growing things in life are, and while I’m learning I’m not mastering yet, baby steps. I’m metaphorically carrying buckets of water up 5000 steps to try and remember what each step feels like and how the stone and cold feel against my body. As I do these repetitions, each one makes the path seem easier, and more enjoyable, and while I still do not see the ultimate purpose, I know that this is where the goal of eliminating the cancer lives, so I’ll be slogging along until the purpose becomes clear, or until the cancer is gone, either one works. I have reached the ponit where understanding is no longer paramount. Results speak for themselves, and the mysteries of the universe… well I’ll always be curious, but if something is working, I’ll just do it. If something is broken I’ll stop doing it.

I’d like to write a moment about gratitudes. I have a blessed and charmed life. There are so so many good things and wonderful experiences that I have had, and have and look forward to having in the near, short and far future. I cherish the people in my life. They are human, so they have their own mix of flaws, some greater than mine and more obvious, some more insidious for them and harder for them to see, they also have their own gifts, and blessings, which they share often and in abundance with me, and touch me and many other stars in this universal consciousness.

I am grateful for days when I wake, even at the crazy rare hour of 2am, wide awake, and after spending 35 minutes resolving to try and go back to sleep, as even with steroids 4 hours is hardly a good nights rest, but being unable to do so, embrace the fact, and enjoy the thankfulness that knows my body is doing the best it can, and I’m grateful for its help, strength and efforts towards best possible pathways for my life.

I am grateful for all of my friends and family, who experience these journeys, my struggles, their own struggles, the struggles of the world, the environment, and they persevere, they thrive. They have good days and bad days, and we share them to make them all memories and something to be cherished.

I am so thankful for all the prayers, thoughts, and beliefs of my friends, family and even the random strangers like the super cool waitress yesterday at Kerbey who was just totally in the zone with me, and was having so amazing a day that she shared it with me and all her customers. I am just so grateful for these experiences.

I am grateful for the opportunities the universe provides me to watch other people struggle. To catch the people that are having a bad day, and be able to hug them or talk with them, without taking on their struggle, but be able to let them know they are not alone, that there is someone else having struggles, and walking along the path beside them. These used to be things I felt the need to solve, to help right, to find or lead the person to a shorter path. I have learned this is not my job at this time. My job is to observe, and be present. My job is to speak truth, speak harmony, and be the balance. If they come to the balance it is neither my blessing nor my fault Some people are not always ready for the answer when its available, and honestly you can not solve anything for anyone else, only for yourself. I suppose small children are an exception for parents, but I’m not a parent to any other soul on this path, and it is not my job to solve things for any other soul but my own. Finding peace in this resolution is challenging, I am grateful each time the universe leads me to the answer, thru another soul or another event, and allows me to see the harm I have historically created for myself, as well as for others by failing to abide by the concept that I need to save myself first, before I endeavor to save someone else.

I am grateful for love, and the ability to lovingly approach myself each day with overwhelming joy for the good positive things I have in my life. “Family. Friends. Food. These are what matter most.”

Its been a while since my last post, because blunty everytime I try and think or draft in my mind a conversation that I don’t mind posting, it just seems so negative….

I’m not a negative person. Anyone with any interactions with me, would be inclined to say that I call things like they are, then immediately look for the upside, the win or the ray of sunshine, even in seemingly abysmal things.

That’s just me, always has been always will. If I can’t write that way, I just aint gonna write, because blunty if it isn’t me, then its not worth doing.

There was an old game on the price is right with the little yodel man where he would climb up the mountain. I feel like that little yodel man lately. Singing and trying to find the best possible spirit, and so many things keep trying to put me down.

I had Scans in July, Brain MRI, Full body CT, and Bone scan. This was the third time I’d had this trifecta of tests this year, and there is another scheduled – per my request early next month. See doctors in their diligence wanted to do them this month, but that would mean they would also want to do them in December. And 5 of these sets of tests in one year seems more than a little excessive, so I opted to schedule these later than they requested.

The MRI from July, actually looked promising. It showed the radiation is helping. The CT wasn’t horrible, but the bone scan showed disease progression in my sternum, which had previously shown no disease progression. I opted to not start the treatment options immediately for this, as I was progressing with Radiation, and I don’t really want to double dip. My body is not as strong as it was 4 years ago, and toxic treatments are just that, toxic. Have to temper them with life.

So instead I put it on hold, and did the radiation. I had a reaction with the radiation. It sent me to the hospital. it wasn’t a seizure, which is both good and horrible bad. Good because, “yeah not a seizure”. Bad because “they” medical doctors don’t really know precisely what “it” was. The neurologist at the hospital, wonderful person, reviewed the EEG, during which I was visibly spasming, leg moving around on its on, and the eeg showed No seizure activity. So they called it a “negative neural response”.

Something about this experience in the hospital basically did one of those things in my mind, where I basicaly said “Fuck it” – I have done this a few times in my life, mostly situations that in hindsight I can see were a quake of unpleasantness for alot of people in my life. But my mind decided, and I took a 4 week vacation to visit a friend in Spokane Valley.

It was an amazing trip, I did alot of learning during this time, and health things were basically in limbo. This meaning, I had no incidents, and while over 4 weeks I did have 4 bad days – 2 very bad, 2 mildly bad days – overall I had alot of fun and was able to spend a good deal of time just feeling like myself.

I flew home on a Tuesday, to a myriad of engagements the very next day. I crashed early, and got up on Wed, I had another of these muscle spasm incidents, far more severe than the one the day of radiation, it amplified much faster, and by the time I got to the hospital I was in the most pain I have ever experienced in my 46 years of life, the spasm had radiated up to my port, and shot down my arm feeling as if someone had shoved my arm into a furnace. I was screaming in agony when we went to the hospital. I had taken Ativan prior to going to the hospital, they dosed me with a triple dose, I basically fell asleep and the spasm stopped.

I think what makes these spasms the most frightening is not really understanding why they are occuring, in other words, What am I doing or not doing that is causing these?

Being a data analyst I looked at the facts. What was I doing daily, that could have contributed to or to lack of these things. I came across a curious thing. I was taking an herbal detox supplement from my acupuncturist that ran out while I was in Spokane. That Wed back was actually day 10 with no supplement.

Now I’m not a poster child for OMG MUST DO HERBAL. However, that being said, I know from personal experience some herbal things are some of the most powerful tools we have for health. My fatty liver condition from the 20s was reversed 100% by Milk Thistle. Colds and sore throats have been avoided and resolved by Oil of Oregano. Muscle soreness from work outs or stupid human things, have been resolved with Arnica Montana. But I was skeptical about this supplement being the source of “lack of spasm things”

Until I started taking it again, and suddenly the spasms went from being 3-4 a day, to being 1-2 and less strength, to being none.

Going full circle on why this is a non sales pitch – well, I resolved, that since I was home now, it was time to resume my treatments towards backing my cancer off, specifically re-starting the chemo drug TDM1 – that basically helps my body kill off cancer, whilst crippling its ability to spread, and proliferate. So talked to Oncologist, and she was like “hell yes I’ll start you back again, good choice, good patient” – okay maybe not quite that way, but close lol. I love my oncologist, she is great. Before we restarted I went to pharmacist, and of course, there is a contraindication of one of the herbs in this supplement. …. Life couldn’t just be straightforward and easy for once could it?

The odd thing about the contraindication is that it appears to be in how the TDMI is metabolized in the body, and while these herbs support detox, this particular herb actually somehow suppresses the bodies natural ability to remove this drug efficiently. Its coupled with a head scratching thing, because the drug pharmacist also gave me this really informative sheet of contraindications that had licorince twice, which is not in this supplement. Which just makes me scratch my head. I never understood why people would do illegal drugs. But I do now, because when you know something works for you, its very hard to listen to the naysayers telling you its bad.

Had first treatment of TDM1 yesterday, and had a HORRIBLE reaction. Mostly because I didn’t let them give me the IV steroid at the time of drug infusion, as I had a steroid infusion scheduled for today, and I didn’t want to overlap that many in a week. WONT MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN. I will say, TDM1 gives these lucide fantasy dreams that are like manifestations of the mind. And I spent the entire 18 hours I tried to sleep fighting imaginary space monkeys that were invading my mind with bubblegum guns of spoof that kept making inflammation. DOWN WITH MONKEYS.

Sufficed to say, this whole post doesn’t have much to say other than, yeah I’m still fighting. Some days harder than others, but I’m still finding and having fun even when the days are hard. I think some of the most “lack of inspiration” I have encountered, is during a few of the bad days, there is nothing more demoralizing than finding these super empowering videos or blogs of people that were — catch that word there – “were” fighting cancer at some point x amount of time in the past. They had vision, they had a voice, they had strength and power, and now they are dead. Yeah I mean I guess everyone dies, and I guess I’m more accurately aware of my morality. I guess the overriding message on this is Carpe Diem. Tomorrow isn’t promised, enjoy today.

Love you if you stuck it out. I’m doing okay, feisty and fighty as much as always. I’ll try and post again soon.

Or in other words, finding the key for the lock.

One thing I have been struggling with in my journey for curing my cancer is visualization. I have always been an extremely adept creative visualization person – one of those people that can describe visual things in finite detail, because they reside that way in my minds eye.

Its also been a tenement of healing that I have been aware of for a long time, or really “life” in general, that anything you can visualize, in enough detail can be manifest in reality. I have had this tool for as long as I can remember. Seeing things, and willing them into existence.

The struggle I have had in vanishing the cancer that has moved into my brain is not having a good visual for what it looks like for it to be gone.

I mean I had tons of pictures of “brains” but those aren’t precisely “my brain”….

A healer friend told me just after the diagnosis to visualize my head as being all white, as white light eradicating all the dark spots of cancer in my brain. This visual worked for a hot minute, until I went to the doctor and they showed me the MRI, with its grey matter and white spots of cancer.

This created quite an internal dilemma for me, a conflict of resolution. Did I visualize it as all white light? or Grey matter? Did the one feed the other or visa versa?

Suddenly my greatest tool was literally the one I had to chuck to the side, because the conflict of indecision was causing me stress.

It felt like a gap but it wasn’t one I had a good solution about, so I left it in the hands of the angels, and rather than using visualization, I stuck to praying.

Now I don’t want to say that prayer is ever a bad, or wrong thing, Its a great thing, but I am also a firm believer in that adage that God helps those who help themselves, and I will confess to feeling a little weak at not being able to visualize a solution.

All of this changed about a week ago, when my meditations and prayers finally led me to an answer, a picture that is neither right nor wrong but is definitively perfect for me. I figured I’d share it here.

In my prayers, I realized that these cancer cells are very akin, in my life, to a bug. A fly or mosquito on the wall of my brain so to speak. And somehow this visual stuck, and I instantly had a solution, what do you do when you have flies outside on that lovely evening when you are enjoying the cool breeze and lovely sunsets of life? You turn on your bug zapper.

So my visualizations now place 7 ( Seven being a magical number, a total of creation, and in many ways a perfect thing.) of these cancer bug zappers around my brain. Six around, and one in the center. And then I visualize turning these little gems on, with their white light radiating out, and attracting those pests into their gateway to exiting my body. I charge this white light up with Purple, giving it the power to heal my cells and just remove the cancer in a zappy format.

Each time I practice this visual, I feel healthier and stronger, I feel that this is a lightness I have been needing. The key so to speak for solving this health situation. For teaching the dragon, me, how to surf, riding the waves of life.

I’ve always been a problem solver. Someone who can see things from multiple angles, and see solutions that other people can’t even imagine. More than a glass half full, more like a ship in the bottle instead of just a single glass.

I have prided myself on my tenacity with working thru until the solution became evident. No matter how dire or insurmountable the problem presented proved to be, I would hold out hope, and apply my vast array of energy towards a solution.

In recent days, I have been provided with a self evident truth that was more than a little humbling. This strength of mine for problem solving is also one of my greatest weaknesses.

How can this be? How can seeking to solve problems be a weakness?

In this great strength is the truth that in seeking to solve problems, I am perpetually seeking problems. Or in more eloquent words, from my teachers, enjoy what is working not what is broken.

This is humbling, and somehow has brought me a tremendous amount of happiness. An ability to be able to breath a little more deeply and express my infinite gratitude for all the things going perfectly, and harmoniously in my life. Particularly at a time when I am inundated with “solutions” to the many things that are not going precisely how I would crave, IE “problems”

I had an old friend visit me yesterday; and as well as the delivery of much craved tea I had requested, she made a comment that somehow made me step back.

She said “You look great”.

It was a simple thing, it shouldn’t have thrown me for a loop. I know I have many many little pebbles in my shoes right now, but I had forgotten to stop and just breath and enjoy all the life I have in me right now. To enjoy the sun on my toes, the wind on my wind chimes, the barking of my pup, the smile on my face.

A second message my teacher presented to me, was “use those things.” This is a little bit more convoluted to explain, but I have all these treasures, things I have gotten for “a rainy day”

Or honestly, things I had gotten with the intention of gifting or sharing with someone in a special circumstance. What this message was for, was a reminder to me, that I should enjoy these things now, and take joy in them for the sake of the joy.

An example of this is some incense I have; that reminded me of my experiences in the temples in India. They smell just like the temples did, and I had been saving them, keeping them with many other things in a box that had dust on the top when I brought it out and burned them today.

Feeling that memory of the day I found these, and the memory that the smell brought to my mind, the day I spent in the temple of Shiva, and the feeling and smell the whole house has now that I have lit them, and enjoyed them. Its a state of bliss.

So I expect I’ll be breaking out the good china, the special dishes and all the other “special day” things I have, because life is truly too short to “save them” … Every day is a day of joy to be enjoyed with all these special things.

Going back to my Milk Oolong and some great tunes, to enjoy more of this incredible beautiful day.

I debated about calling this Entitlement and the lemmings that go bump in the night, being as how the inspiration for this post came at me after an hour of tossing and turning trying to get to sleep and being soundly unable to rest. Headed to bed much earlier than usual tonight, as tomorrow is test day. More about that later, this post has been a marble bouncing around in my brain for some time.

When I was 20, soon to be 21 I spent a winter and spring with my great aunt M. It was an amazing life changing experience. It was when I was first introduced to the Desiderata. It resonated with me then, and many times thru my life it has been a shining beacon of hope in the background, but it also set the groundwork for a revelation I had this year about entitlement.

For the sake of this post, going to use the google definition of entitlement: basically having a right, or basic belief that one is inherently deserving of a particularly privilege or treatment. Over the years of my life, I have given alot of thought and ponderance to that word, and the implications, and ramifications that occur when one has entitlement.

Its also worth discussing for a brief moment the law of attraction or the general conservation of energy. If energy is never destroyed, and like energies attract like energies, entitlement as a mantra or belief system quickly becomes self fulfilling prophecy and self sustaining. This is, once in motion by thought, action, and belief, energies of self, and outside align to be in harmony with this entitlement and make it a self fulfilling thing. That is, by providing the belief, it calls to the thing itself, which strengths the belief, replicates the thing, attracting more of the like and becomes stronger and stronger, much like a tree that once its weathered its first cycle of seasons and developed a strong enough root system, doesn’t really need much else to just keep following the path and growing into a strong pattern of life. In my personal testing, in my life and experiences, this is something I have found to be true.

We all have entitlements, often times they are not always the most readily obvious things to us. At the end of last year, a startling revelation caused me to realize that not all entitlements are inherently positive. There is such a thing as negative entitlements or, self sustaining mantras we may not even recognize as ones we are fertilizing in our gardens of life, mind and thought.

I realized, I had an entitlement that was keeping me obese. I felt, entitled to be recognized by my peers as fat. I had always been fat, it was comfortable. I had a right to be treated as a fat person. To be medically diagnosed as a fat person. To be looked down upon and overlooked as a fat person. For assumptions to be made about what I would eat, drink, and how I would be acting or fitting into clothing, food, places. All of these things, I had expectations for how people would react and how they would treat me, that were neither conscious nor positive, but were my own perceptions of how life was to be, for me, as a fat person. I had an entitlement to be fat.

In the course of my health journey, I somehow in the course of restricting all of my foods, and taking and micromanaging everything going on with my body chose somehow to unconsciously release that entitlement. I would be entitled to be a healthy person. I didn’t realize I had an entitlement to be fat, until suddenly a few months after releasing it, recognized that I suddenly wasn’t really fat anymore. I honestly didn’t realize an entitlement was gone, until suddenly I was fitting into off-the-shelf medium size lounge pants, that I tried on overtop of my existing 2xl yoga pants. My reaction to the size wasn’t the shock or awe my hindsight might have expected, but more a, wow these are not only not tight, but they actually fit kinda nice.

In reflection as I gave away the old clothing that had been hanging off me for some time, I realized it wasn’t until I released that entitlement that my body felt free to shed the weight it had been struggling, with my low healthy caloric intake, to maintain.

Entitlement is a thing that I have used many times in my life. Its my practical application of the law of attraction or “the secret”- as some people tend to profit from….. Seeing it more as a belief of “I am entitled to this thing, and all of the trappings and interactions that occur with this thing”

It’s the small thoughts, and speech that are utilized by my heart, mind and mouth. I found that by claiming consciously the entitlements that I believe I deserve, it frees the universe up to ensure they exist for me.

My current entitlements are health, longevity, prosperity, and peace of mind.

Now with this out of my head, maybe I’ll be able to rest for tonight now, before my CT Scan and Bone scan tomorrow. I realized today that these tests, so soon again are like my quarterly report card of how I am progressing with my healing process. Here is hoping for another A.