A DIfferent Point of Veiw

Ryan was going to write this blog because as you all know, he is much better with the details then I tend to be. However, he is extremely busy with work so I thought I would just do my best.

Last Thursday Ryan and I had a conference call with Brian Clement from Hippocrates. It was extremely interesting. I had sent him my scans before the call so he could take a look at what was going on. He also had the information from my last scan and all of my latest blood tests. He started by saying that he has seen scans like mine many of times.....I think his exact words were thousands of times. His take on the situation is that yes there are probably cancer cells in my lung but what we are seeing with the branching is not a tumor. He thinks that what is happening is that my immune system is doing it's job. He explained that it takes over 5 billion cells to show up on a scan and what we are seeing is that my immune system is coming together to fight whatever maybe in my lung. It explains why I had only healthy cells found in my eight needle biopsies. He also explained that when my good cells are fighting my bad cells it causes heat in the body. Because my body is a perfect machine it sends water to cool down the location which in turn is causing my cough. He also said that my blood work looked fantastic and in his opinion I should stay the course with my diet and wheat grass.

I do have to fess up at this point that I was a bit of slacker on my diet. Not the eating part. I actually think I do a pretty good job of staying raw. I definitely have my weak moments and eating out is extremely hard. I am the first to say that I am not perfect. However, I am really proud of the 90% change I have made instead of the 10% mistakes. Where I have been lacking is the wheat grass portion which is just as important as the diet. I have been taking wheat grass pills for the last 3 months and doing fresh only when it was convenient. It just made things so much easier while I was traveling visiting family and friends. When I asked Brian about the pills he informed me that they are 1% effective. Then I asked him about the frozen wheat grass I have seen in stores and he replied 3% effective. So now I have been back to the basics and juicing fresh for the past 10 days. I am happy to report that my cough is improving everyday.

We also talked about surgery. Brian's take on surgery is that if I decided to go forward they will most likely find cancer cells. Will they get all 5 billion....unlikely. Basically I will be in the same situation as before with my immune system trying to fight off the bad cells. Only this time I will be weak from surgery and getting back on my feet and feeling good can take a while. Of course if they find cancer cells they will want me to go on chemo immediately and I think I have made myself clear how I feel about that. I do intend to meet with the surgeon to hear what he has to say but at this point I think I am going to watch things closely and see what the next scan shows at the end of August. Until then I am in lock down mode. I am trying to stay home and focus on getting healthy.

I know it is hard for a lot of people to understand that I would be willing to go against conventional medicine. I won't lie and say it isn't scary but I truly believe that what I am doing now is the path to a long healthy life. Actually I plan on out living each and everyone of you. HA! HA!

Good News/Bad News

As the saying goes...I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first? I always choose the good news first. I always think that maybe that will make me feel better about the bad news.

Good News

I got the call from Dr. Staddon that after eight needle biopsy's they could not find any abnormal cells. At this point I should be jumping around and celebrating! However, I know better then to get ahead of myself. If any of you ever read the postings, there is a posting on my last entry from another Sarcoma survivor and she had a similar experience. By the way who ever you are my sarcoma sister, I would love to be able to contact you in some way. It sounds like you have lots of experience and may be able to shed some light on everything I am going through. My direct e-mail is on the main page.


Bad News

So following this amazing news, Dr. Staddon continues with two options. First option is to do another needle biopsy. Second option is to do surgery. I jumped at the chance of surgery! I know that sounds odd that I would be excited to do surgery but that really is my best option. When you are trying to fight something with your own immune system the less cells there are to kill the better. Surgery would get rid of the most cells in the shortest amount of time. Dr. Staddon prefers to do another needle biopsy because in his mind the things they are seeing on the scans are definitely cancer and they would want to start a chemo regimen ASAP. They look at it as the less they have to cut out the better. Also while the chemo was shrinking the spots on my lungs it would also be killing any other cells that might be gaining any momentum to grow in any other places. I am not interested in having a needle stuck into me eight more times, until they get the results they want. Also, I have not leveled with him that I am not going to jump back into chemo. He is not going to like that answer so I am prolonging the conversation until it is necessary. Dr. Staddon is on vacation this week but he made a call to one of his surgeon friends to try and get me in right away. I guess it usually takes two months to get into see this particular surgeon. I have yet to hear anything but will keep you posted.

I also have a phone interview with Brian Clement on Thursday afternoon. He if the founder of Hippocrates. I sent him my scans and blood tests because I wanted to get a holistic view of my situation. At that point I will make my own decision on the best path to follow.

Too Busy For Cancer

Sorry we didn't write yesterday afternoon. The day just got away from us. I am just going to try and give a quick update of yesterdays events.

I arrived around 8am and they started my biopsy around 9:30am. It is a very complicated biopsy because what they see on the scan is very small. They actually do the biopsy in the cat scan. So basically they would put in the needle and then scan to make sure it was in the right place and then try and take a sample. The doctor described it as trying to put a toothpick in a grape. It is very hard to hit it just perfectly. They ended up using eight separate needles to try and get a sample. There was actually a tech in the room with us that was checking each sample for abnormal cells. I guess everything they were getting was coming back normal so they just kept trying. Needless to say being prodded eight times in the lung did cause some partial collapsing. They kept me in the hospital and took an x-ray once an hour. They were really on the fence of admitting me for the night and putting a tube through my chest into my lung.

During this long wait, I of course struck up a conversation with the patients around me. I was surrounded by cancer survivors. We talked for over 2 hours while we waited for our turns. Then out of the blue my friend Andrea showed up! She had to have her port accessed so she could have her cat scan with dye. We of course laughed that once again our paths would cross in the hospital. The nurse that was in charge said she had worked there for five years and has never seen patients having full on conversations like we were. I thought that was funny. At one point we were all laughing and she had to tell us to keep it down to hear the person she was talking to on the phone.

Finally at 3:00 in the afternoon they released me. I guess my x-ray showed a small improvement. Thank god because I had two parties to go to that night and I didn't want to miss them. I did make both but I was completely exhausted by 10pm and slept eleven hours. I feel much better today and I am looking forward to the weekend. Sorry if this post has tons of errors but I am running out to meet a friend and I am short on time. Life goes on.......

Keeping up with Kristine

I know everyone out there is routing for me and probably pretty worried at this point. I just wanted to keep you all updated on what is going on in my crazy life. First of all the biopsy has been scheduled for Thursday morning so I most likely will not get any results until the following week. To be honest I am more concerned with the biopsy then the results! I had a needle put into my lung after my heart surgery to remove excess fluid. IT HURT LIKE HELL!! This is coming from a women that just had open heart surgery, so you know I am not messing around. One of the side effects of this biopsy is that my lung could collapse. My oncologist said, "but don't worry because a collapsed lung is really no big deal." I am sorry, I find this to be a big deal. Let's not forget if this happens I will be admitted to the hospital. YUCK! Anyway, does it sound like I am complaining?? I am more annoyed then anything, but I guess this is a life of a cancer patient. The problem was that I had the luxury of forgetting that I was a cancer patient for awhile and now it is hospitals and biopsies all over again.

The reason that the results don't scare me as much is because I have pretty much already decided that I will not be starting a new chemo regimen. As you have read in my past postings there are holistic options available. I plan on exploring every last one of them. I will keep you posted on my decisions. I am not saying that I will never do chemo again but I am saying it is a last resort for me. I truly believe in my heart that there are better ways of fighting cancer. I have always been one to march to the beat of my own drum and this time I will not just be following doctors orders.

I have been cleaning up my act since my last scan and have gone back on my raw diet 110%. I am very proud of the changes I have made to help beat this disease. While I was still vegetarian, I was doing more of a 80% raw and 20% cooked. I also saw a healer last night. He doesn't heal cancer but he can find things out of tune in your body. He told me that I have a fungal infection in my heart chakra. (I know this sounds totally hippie, but stay with me here.)
I just had to write about it because if it comes up as a fungal infection I wanted you guys to have seen this in writing first. It is funny because I have never in my life thought I would be hoping for a fungal infection!

It seems like my cough is getting better everyday. I close my eyes about three times a day and tell all of my white blood cells to go kick the crap out of what ever is in my lungs. Maybe it is actually working. Mind over matter....Right?? Anyway, I am doing great and I am very positive and want to thank everyone for sticking this crazy thing out with me. Until Thursday. Have a great week.

Kristine

Reality Check

Kristine had her follow up appointment with Dr. Staddon this afternoon to review her latest CT scans and MRI. I accompanied her for support and to hear what the oncologist had to say about her results.

It's difficult to describe our moods going into the appointment -- each of us probably carrying a very different set of complex and mixed emotions. The underlying mood was palpable though, especially since we avoided anything but surface level conversation about the upcoming visit.

Psychologically I've been able to escape a bit, relegating cancer to a one-time event in our distant past. Even as reminders have emerged in the last month or so that the past may not be so distant -- a constant dry cough, light-headedness when Kristine stands up and an acute discomfort in her right shoulder -- I remain optimistic and rationalize these symptoms away as part of the healing process. But this couldn't be further from Kristine's reality. She lives constantly with these symptoms as nagging reminders that any one of her scan appointments could reveal a recurrence. Nonetheless, she still has an amazing and unyielding optimism about whatever news she may receive.

In the office, the nurses stopped to say hello and compliment Kristine on how great she looks -- her spirit positive and her skin noticeably glowing from her raw vegan diet. We sat in near silence waiting for the doctor, both of us introspective about what news we might learn. Once in the examination room, Dr. Staddon took some time to talk about the scan results. He typed information into the office computer as he asked the usual exploratory questions. After some small talk he began discussing the results with us.

The scans show two branching mass-like soft tissue densities in Kristine's right lower lung. Dr. Staddon said that the presentation of these "nodules," as he called them, are very unusual. Tumors normally form initially as isolated masses rather than as branching structures as were seen in Kristine's scans. The nodules were seen in her scans a few months ago but were much smaller. They are still only about 2 cm in length (a little under an inch) and are likely causing Kristine's dry cough. Dr. Staddon expressed his concern but said that in order to be certain that the tissue was malignant and related to the previous cancer a biopsy will be necessary. He was also quick to mention chemotherapy options, which apparently would be different from prior treatments since new drugs have recently shown to be effective and less intensive. Both Kristine and I cringed at the very mention of additional chemo.

Kristine is scheduled for a needle biopsy early next week, after which we will meet with the oncologist to discuss the results and next steps. Kristine is doing well and continues to be optimistic. Part of her has been almost expecting to get this news since the end of her last radiation treatment, but of course there is always a hope that she is wrong.

We will keep you posted next week.

Ryan

Hi everybody, It's Kristine! I felt like I had to add a little something. Please don't worry and get all upset. I am taking this one step at a time and I am not concerned at all. I am living in the moment and in this moment there is no definite answer. So tomorrow I will be enjoying my life at the pool for the day. There, now you are all a bit jealous of me. Love ya,

Kristine

Round Three

I had my third set of scans since my surgery on last Thursday. They are becoming more of a chore then a big deal. I pretty much know the drill at this point. I know all of the tricks and how to get in and out in the most efficient way. I pretty much know all of the technicians and stop to chat with each of them like it is a social event. One of them is named Kristine so we have a bit of a bond. Everyone keeps asking me how I feel and I respond with, "I feel great!" The reality is that I do feel great but that feeling is very deceiving being I felt great and actually went skiing the day before I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. So feeling great is not enough to give me confidence that these scans will come up completely clean. I am usually really positive and only expect good news but this time I have to say I am nervous. I get my results on Thursday late afternoon so I will be sure to let everyone know as soon as I can.

I have a lot going on this summer and I don't really have time for cancer. Cancer stole my summer last year and I am determined to enjoy this one come hell or high water! Send me good vibes on Thursday. Until then,

Kristine