Chemo Concoction

Danny and I took off for the Memorial Day weekend. We packed up Emma and Bingie; Emma in her crate in the back of the truck, and Bingie wandering the cab, finally settling onto my lap. We braved the crazy traffic, and headed east over the mountains. My parents gave us their house so that we could get out of town, knowing that we need a kitchen in order to function with our crazy chemo phase. It was so much fun getting away from the routine of our life. We needed a break, a change of pace, a different view, new scenery, and a mild adventure. 

Above are photos of the chemo process. On Saturday night, Danny and I made two batches. These new little gadgets are making things so easy! After the drink had cooked for three hours at 100 degrees, I hunkered down. It took me an hour to ingest an entire glass, five large sips every 20 minutes, which is pretty typical. I can't drink it fast or it causes almost instant projectile vomiting. After my last sip, I was able to hold the drink down for one hour, then, after gently pacing, and doing some deep breathing, I had a wave of nausea so severe that there was nothing I could do. Neither my desire nor thinking of warm beaches, butterflies and bunnies did it either, I went to say something and vomit shot out of my mouth. It was seriously like something you'd see in a horror movie. The worst part about vomiting, other than the fact that I need my body to absorb the sulforaphane, is that one drink costs about $40. So, it's practically liquid gold. I don't care about the cost, as long as it gets into my body. I'd pay anything to heal myself, but if the money is going down the drain, quite literally, it's frustrating.

Danny cleaned up all of the mess, which was incredibly sweet. I wish that there was something I could do - I feel like I'm literally allergic to this stuff. The worst part is that this chemo drink that we created on Saturday night was half the dose of the normal drink. I honestly don't think I can drink it, not even a little bit. It always causes me to be sick.

Fortunately, there's a way to slow cook the drink, and as it dries up, you can roll the film into pills. Since we recognized my issue with the chemo drink in the past, as a precaution, we had already enlisted my parent's help in creating chemo pills. So, thankfully, when we saw my parents, after the long weekend, they handed me a bag of their homemade pills. Not wanting to waste any time, last night, I started with five pills which is 245.5 mg. I'm starting slow, trying to find my tolerance. Five pills caused heartburn, and some discomfort, but that's fine - no big deal. I can handle pain, and discomfort. In fact, I can handle all of the horrible side effects, but somehow I can't manage to keep it down for good. There has to be a point, though, the threshold where I can get the maximum effect and not vomit. The way that my body rids itself of the chemo drink is shocking. It's like I'm possessed - it's unreal. I just need to keep this stuff in my system long enough to get the effects. And happily, at least now, I have a few pills to slowly assess things. The pills are lot of work, but with my parents and Danny and I, all working like two sweatshop factories, we should be able to keep a good amount in production. I have to do whatever I can to heal my body. This treatment works, we already know that, but, first things first, I have to find a way to keep it in my system.

Hard Work & Healthy Distractions

Danny is going to kill me. I was supposed to tell my friends at the retirement home that I need to take a couple of weeks off from volunteering. Dan's worried that I'm overdoing it, and he wants me to focus on getting healthy. He believes that I need to focus solely on my new protocol, but while I was painting Margaret, Elizabeth, and Ruth's nails, I realized I just can't walk away. These wonderful women are so fun to be around. They keep me laughing, or at other times, we're just quiet. Volunteering feels like the only time that I'm not focusing on just me. It's wonderful helping someone with their walker, or opening a door. I love serving them juice, or painting their nails. They give me a reason to get out of the house every Tuesday morning, whether it's sunny or pouring rain. I'm afraid, that if I can't volunteer, I'll get depressed. I'm pretty terrified these days, and I need distractions. I need to help others. I need my life to not be just about me.

Yesterday was my first high dose vitamin C treatment. On Thursday, I'll return for IV curcumin and resveratrol. I'm going to be alternating those two IVs twice a week for quite some time. Unfortunately, the treatments are not covered by insurance. So, thank you to everyone who has donated money to help heal me! Thank you to Matt & AJ for Movember For Jess, and to those who have donated to the Islanders Bank account in Friday Harbor. Of course, thank you for the girls who created, and maintained the Hope for Jess website of my art work. Thank you to everyone who donated to any of the above fundraisers. You guys are AWESOME!! When it comes to medical care, hospitals are wonderful about payment plans, if need be, but when it comes to "alternative" medicine, you have to pay upfront. So, the money that has been donated to me in the past, has been incredibly helpful. I've used some to pay current medical bills, but then I got smart, and realized I needed to bank the donations for any kind of uncovered care. Because of your amazing donations, I'm getting full body, synergistic care that is not only healing my body, but also, directly targeting my cancer cells with a barrage of weapons. So, truly, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Apparently, the high dose vitamin C, curcumin, and resveratrol IVs are synergistic with my low doses of artemisinin. They should all work together, along with my diet and supplements which have grown exponentially (shark liver oil, borage seed oil, fish oil, maitake, shiitake, lions mane, aloe vera jelly, boswellia, CoQ10, EGCG, D3 - I'm probably forgetting a couple) - and last but not least, it should all work with the sulforaphane chemo drink. I haven't been able to get started on the chemo drink, yet, unfortunately. I've ordered a yogurt maker, which should cook my chemo drink at exactly 100-110 degrees for several hours. It even has little cups, that sit on a tray. I'm pretty excited about it - the little cups on the tray will make it so that I can do a week's worth of drinks in one batch. Woop woop!! The shipment should arrive by the end of the week. Once that arrives, Hermie is going to FREAK. I'm pumped!!

Well.....I, mean, I'm pumped, and completely terrified. It's tough to keep my chin up and plow through everything, but I know that giving up would be ridiculous. I need to stay calm, ignore statistics about my cancer and effectiveness of the various treatments (30% success rate for one, 20% for another, etc.). I have to believe that these things that I'm doing are going to work together and heal my body. To put this much effort into living is risky because I would hate to be disappointed, but, of course, that's a horrible attitude to have. It's just not acceptable. That's not a winner's attitude. Maybe I need to do more deep breathing or something. Part of it could be that I feel disjointed from Hermie lately, I can't quite tell what's happening up there. I worry that he's morphing, which does tend to happen. Cancer cells don't like to die, and when they come into contact with things that threaten their livelihood, they like to adjust, change their dynamics and progress, so that the treatments are rendered ineffective. To outsmart the Hermies of this world, we have to keep the full frontal attack. It's exhausting, but it's the only way to win.