Dazed and Confused

On Friday I saw my oncologist and she didn't say anything I wanted to hear. She didn't seem very knowledgeable on triple negative breast cancer and the outlook was not positive nor the treatment options. I already knew that she wasn't the doctor to see so I let her comments fly over my head and went ahead with a referral to Dr. Gelmon who is the breast cancer specialist and knows all about the state of the art treatment trials. The only thing is, I learned that she is away for two weeks so I won't be able to see her before my radiation.

On Friday I also had a CT and MRI scan to prepare for the radiation. I also had a plastic mask made that shaped my face and is supposed to keep my head in place in order to make the radiation more accurate. My radiation oncologist also came down to tell me in person that there were two more lesions in the scan of the brain which I guess appeared in the two weeks since my stay at the hospital--crazy. So in the radiation, they would be zapping those tumours as well. In the meanwhile, Elt read some stuff on the net about the side effects of radiation like permanent hair loss, loss of short term memory, and depression which really made him concerned for me. So now I am having second thoughts about it.

The other thing I have been very interested in is alternative treatment. There is a place in Florida called the Hippocrates Health Institute where thousands of people have been healed. They immerse you in the raw food diet as well as top notch therapies and counseling to really treat you in a holistic way. All the therapies they do is focused on improving your immune system so that your body can fight disease as it should whereas modern medicine does the exact opposite and suppresses your immune system so cancer can spread or come back. Now if I look at my own case, chemotherapy didn't work for me. I heard that the first 4 treatments I had were so strong that you can only have it administered once in your life. When pharmacists work with those chemo drugs, they have to wear full body protection in case they come in contact with it because it will burn their skin! I mean goggles, hat, boots, gloves, the whole thing. When I switched to the next chemo drug and did 3 treatments of that and it stopped working, I basically did all of it for nothing. Radiation took 5 1/2 weeks but surgery just made my cancer spread. Now 3 months later, I am worse off than before! I was a great patient before, doing exactly what I was told but now I'm not sure I can just accept what the doctors are offering. The problem is that the Hippocrates way and the cancer agency way are complete opposites so it's really hard to do one or the other. I'm going to Hippocrates no matter what for 3 weeks but I just don't know if I will go before/after radiation.

In the meantime, I have spoken to two women who have similar brain mets. One totally put herself in her faith and the tumour disappeared. The other woman is actually a patient of Gelmon and has had many different kinds of treatment. All seemed to be working but the current treatment she is on entails taking 18 pills a day. I have also heard many amazing stories of people healing themselves as well and I want to be one of them too. However, when you have a day like I had yesterday with light headedness, it's discouraging and makes me want to run to radiation. But with the two major surgeries that I've had in the past 3 months, would my body be strong enough to endure it? My radiation oncologist makes it seem so easy and so foolproof but nothing is 100%.

So, now you know why I haven't written in so long. I've been doing tonnes of reading and contemplating my options this past week and I still don't know which way I'm going to go. I did get my radiation postponed til next Wednesday and have told my radiation oncologist about my concerns. On Friday, my oncolgist is going to examine all my specimens in a team setting with a pathologist and they are going to form a treatment plan. I've also made an appointment to see Dr. Parmar on Tuesday at the Integrative Health Centre in Langley. He is a well known naturopathic oncologist and is the only one that works with the cancer doctors at Lions Gate hospital.

So a lot more questions than answers for now but I know that the decision is mine to take and I can't be rushed into it.

Keep up the positive energy! XOXO

J