Not Mutually Exclusive

Good morning world. I'm feeling wonderful after two consecutive days of napping. Yesterday I even napped twice. Today, apparently, I was still pretty pooped, I slept in until 10:00 am. That is a straight up miracle since I had been waking up in the six o'clock hour all week.

Danny and I have been hitting the weights pretty hard, keeping up with the running, and it's causing a delicious exhaustion of my body. It's a great feeling. It makes me feel so alive! Last Wednesday I did 90 squats with the weight bar bearing 5 lbs on each side. I don't know exactly how heavy that is, but it felt punishing. I probably sound weird, but it's thrilling to push my body. While exercising, I often flash back to the days in the ICU, and then the weeks, and months when I couldn't run or lift weights.

At the time when you're unable to push yourself for fears of seizures, or just flat out pressure on your brain, you feel like you may never get better, that you might not recover. Each time I get to push myself, each time I sprint in the final strides around Green Lake, I end up panting with deep breaths, elated, almost giddy at my abilities. I tell myself, as I wind down into a slow walk, "You just kicked ass!" There's something about really pushing your limits, and I think it's okay to fluff you own feathers. When you get off your butt and challenge your body, you should be proud! There's no shame in that.

It's Monday, so I'm back on my high doses of pills. Today, I thought I'd share exactly the brands that I use, and exactly the what the doses look like. It's 4 pills from each bottle, taken with a cup of whole organic milk. It's important to take the pills with whole milk because the pills are fat soluble.

I am writing this blog to share my experiences throughout my brain cancer journey, including my various treatments. My hope is to have step by step information to share with others who may find themselves in a similar position. I hope my new friend won't mind, but I'm very excited to share that I was contacted by the brother of a gentleman fighting a glioblastoma. He found my blog while trying to exhaust alternative treatments as he has already endured a brain surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, a second brain surgery and the placement of chemo wafers in the tumor cavity. His brother is a total badass cancer fighter. I shared with him more information about the past several months and what I've been doing. I realize that my blog isn't exactly easy to navigate, so I was ecstatic that he emailed with questions! I am so hopeful that my information might be helpful. This is my dream, to be contacted and help share what I've learned. It's FANTASTIC. I truly believe that we can beat these cancers, it's just a matter of varying the doses as we find what works best, and each body is different.

This treatment directly targets cancer cells while leaving healthy cells intact and unharmed. It's amazing! It's everything we've ever looked for, it's everything we've been dreaming of. To anyone out there, please, never hesitate to contact me with questions. I want to help. I want to share everything that I know. Yes, diet is very important, as is with exercise, and reducing stress. But, diet and life changes alone will not cure you of brain cancer. That's what I believe anyway, and statistics seem to concur. We have to be proactive in our treatment. I mean, think about it, if this treatment of mine doesn't cause any damage to healthy cells, why not try it? What do you have to lose? We've already shown that it worked from Oct - Jan between my MRI scans. No. New. Growth. None. Zero. On slides from the two MRI scans, comparing the exact slices, little Hermie appears to maybe even have shrunk just a tid. He definitely lessened in intensity. It's scary to go outside the bounds of our doctor's advice, but it's already been stated by the same doctors that they can't cure brain cancer. So, essentially, they don't have a solution for me. I'm on my own, except for my teammates in the artemisinin cancer fighting world. Thank God for them. I've always been a sucker for answers, and I have never been good at following statements like, "Because I said so." That just doesn't work for me. Sorry, doctors, you'll have to give me a better reason not to try other options.

I realize the doctors are just trying to be cautious and they don't want me to have any other complications, but when there are so few (effectively none) treatments that cure brain cancer, I would be a fool to follow their advice and avoid alternative options. Just because there isn't a clinical trial proving the validity of artemisinin, doesn't mean it isn't effective. The two are not mutually exclusive.