Goin' for "Stable"

In the picture below, you'll notice more of Larry's fresh garlic. It's delicious, but my breath is ATROCIOUS. Luckily it's just Emma and I today, and bad breath is her favorite.

This morning, I woke up rested. I had the chance to debrief with Meghan over the phone last night. We laughed, and I cried a little bit, told her my fears, and if I heard correctly, I think she might have dropped a tear or two as well.

All in all, I feel like this is going to work; the low doses make me feel so good. Also, this protocol is great - absolutely doable. I enjoy having my last meal at 4:30 pm, then cleansing my body with only water until pill time at 8:30 pm. It takes a serious amount of discipline, but I enjoy the challenge. Oddly, it makes me feel strong. I like routine, things that I can count on. I like knowing that antioxidants are for breakfast and lunch, that every day is the same. There's no guessing, no worries, just the basics, every single day.

I'm scared to see growth, albeit minimal. I worry that somehow I won't beat this. I fear that I will continuously decline, and that this tumor will invade and take over my brain until I am no longer functioning. Those are my fears. And, if I look at the majority of cases, it's exactly what happens. BUT, I have stopped Herman's growth before, so I know that I can do this. I know that it can happen. AND, we did shrink the other areas of tumor. SO, who knows. We just have to stop Herman's growth. I'm happy - not thrilled, like I probably should be - that the other areas are smaller, but as long as Herman is growing, he's a major threat and that rains on my parade.

Herman needs to be taken seriously; he's a formidable adversary. So, here we go again, another three month period to conquer this challenge. Herman feels angry, like I've been trying to keep him down, and he's pissed. I just have to keep the low doses of artemisinin coming each night, tucking little Hermie to bed with my own version of a bedtime story.

It's weird to live like this. To be a functioning young-ish adult living with cancer. My life would not be as easy if I would have followed standard of care and done radiation, so I can be grateful for that. I can't imagine all the effects I would be dealing with. Yuck. At the doctor appointment, my mom asked when they would stop pushing for radiation, and the response was: I need to get two more MRIs with minimal growth to be considered "stable." At that point, hypothetically, I would have an entire year of minimal growth which would put the radiation discussion off the table. They would continue to monitor but not push for radiation. So there you go, that's our next goal. We not only want to stop growth, and have it shrink, we want the doctors to stop pushing radiation.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, I just need to go run green lake. My goal today is to jog two laps at once (without stopping), that adds up to be approximately 6 miles. I have never accomplished that feat before, but I need to challenge myself. Hermie and I need to have a run and a long talk. It's going to be wet, but I think Herms has pretty good hearing and can decipher my words through the wind and rain drops. He's already getting pouty. He knows he's in trouble.

Eating Away at My Core

My adorable little nephew

Well, I tried the higher doses of artemisinin, and it appears as if my body didn't prefer it. According to research, there's quite an individual variability of effectiveness. So, last night I started back on the low doses of Artemix. I'm back to doing the same protocol from Oct - Jan. I'm back in contact with the lead researcher at the UW who knows all there is to know about the artemisinin derivatives. He's originally from India where he was a medical doctor, but he moved to the states and earned a PhD, and he now researches artemisinin. He is the most kind doctor and researcher, possibly in the world. I emailed him and discussed what happened with this latest protocol and he expanded on the reasons why the low doses work so well. There's a 24 hour cycle where you eat antioxidants in the morning and at lunch, then refrain and stop eating in the early evening. You then take the artemisinin four hours after dinner with a cup of whole milk. Then you start back over in the morning with antioxidants. By utilizing the 24 hour cycle, you keep your body healthy and it cleans up any residual damaged cells, then when you take artemisinin on an empty stomach, the body creates more free radicals which allow the artemisinin to attack the cancer cells. The artemisinin works its' magic while you sleep and when you wake up, it's time to clean up all of the mess. I'm excited to be back on the low doses, it's so much easier.

It's crazy, but I never liked the high doses. It made my innards hurt. I'm disappointed that Herman grew, but I'm not surprised. I had been noticing some mental deficits, nothing too serious, but things were different up there. I didn't want to jump to conclusions because there's just no point in freaking out, but when I saw the further infiltration of Herm on the MRI, it all made sense. The growth is in my speech and language area, and although I feel like I'm progressively better at expressing myself with the written word, the deficits are when I'm speaking aloud, or processing speech. Tricky stuff. I still don't think anyone else would notice, but I notice and that's creepy enough.

The past twenty-four hours have been pretty tough. My family all returned to Friday Harbor and Wenatchee, and that's when the whole thing hit home. Here we go again, another three months of trying to stop the growth of Herman and hopefully, someday, actually see him shrink. Yesterday, as I was laying in bed trying to nap, I wondered if I was going to be able to keep up the fight. This is exhausting. Sometimes I feel like giving up. I know that I won't, but it's so tough. Luckily, my friends Meghan and Nicole invited me to run the lake. If not for that, I probably would have just laid in bed. I just need to keep one foot in front of the other, and do what I can. At least today I get to visit my friends at the retirement home, they always make me feel better and it's a great excuse to get up and out of the house.

It's so foreign to have a blob growing in my brain. And to feel it, recognizing that it's there and it's eating into who I am, deep in my core, my thoughts and processing, it's absolutely fascinating, and horrible, and terrifying.