Metformin, Miracle?

Yesterday was gorgeous, so I grabbed Emma, and for the first time in over a month, I walked the lake without Danny or any of my friends. I packed a satchel with ice water (a necessity if I have a seizure), aura medication, and my cell phone. It went so well that I did it again today. It's nice to get out, walking is no running, but it's better than nothing :)

I've also been researching like crazy. I'm trying to find additional treatments that will supplement my current protocol. One such addition is metformin. It's a drug that regulates blood glucose in those with type 2 diabetics and is shown to cut off the food supply of solid tumors, even the hard to reach (because of the blood brain barrier) brain tumors. I had been looking into various blood glucose medications on Saturday night, while Dan was at the movies with his buddies, when *bam* in my inbox appeared an email from a friend of the blog. David's father was diagnosed with a glioblastoma last year and somehow he happened to check into the blog again (as he had done a time or two before) and emailed me some pretty badass information about gliomas & metformin. One of the articles even referenced an increase in efficacy when combined with a low glucose style diet (hello Keto!). This is exciting! So now, I'm getting all of my ducks in a row so that I can discuss getting a prescription while I'm in NYC visiting Dr NYC & Dr Germany.

I want to do everything I can to fight smart and truly target my specific tumor. I'm quite exhausted, and truthfully, I don't feel very hopeful about this MRI or the future. I'm scared. The seizure and the numbness have really rattled me. I've had encouragement because people have reminded me that the vaccines do cause inflammation which could interfere with my brain's signals, but somehow that doesn't make me feel better. I don't want the scans to get worse, once they're bad, I've never seen them improve. The only thing I have is right now, if it looks like the tumor area has worsened, I can't bank on it just being inflammation. It's hard to explain, I guess, but if you see a duck it's very hard to say it might be a squirrel.

Sorry to be such a downer, but as this cancer progresses, and things continue to become more and more complicated, it is hard to shake things off. If I sit and do nothing, Hermie will continue to grow and he will kill me. If I sit, then do radiation and chemo, Hermie will kill me. The only way I am going to survive is if I come up with the correct combination of out-of-the-box treatments. Hermie continues to grow, we have watched him from the onset. My job, which I have yet to succeed, is to outsmart him.

Man I'm tired. I'm so dog tired from researching, from checking foods, weighing my foods, dieting, worrying about seizures, trying not to stress, stressing about stressing. My eyes are hot. Ok. It's off to my nightly soak. I'm doing everything I can to relax, but sometimes life is almost more than I can handle. Which is ironic because it's all I want.