Druggie

Today was better, I didn't sleep all day and decided to just pop Hydrocodone like they are candy. So I ended up taking 3 and being pain free - yep, I'm a druggie, who knew?

But b/c of it I got to spend quality time with the family instead of being in a painful stupor so it worked. Tomorrow off to Chicago to see my cousins and go to the Block Center, apparently the founder, Dr. Bloch, had stage 4 lung cancer and using this integrative approach survived 26 years and died of heart failure (e.g. old age). I'm cool with that!

more of the same

So the pain patch isnt working that well anymore. Turns out I'm also not supposed to put heat on it, people have ODed. ODing, not a bad way to go but I decided tonight to take off the patch (its time to change it anyway) in order to wear the heating pad.

Happy
Healthy
Enlightened
And
Love

I hurt today. Slept most of the day. I don't believe HHEAL, but I've said it. I feel surgery looming. Brain surgery. This is my last Friday night with this brain, yep I guess the countdown has begun.

Wisconsin - day with the fam

I didn't get any sleep last night (and we woke at 4:30 am to catch the morning flight). I was able to fly without issue but now I'm SO tired but I've got to hang with my nephew and nieces and see my brother's new business, Ladybug, which is really cool. (pics to come)

I didn't have pain until 8:30 pm pretty sweet and the tightness is gone again. Shwoo. My brain surgery is scheduled for Friday 8/5.

Dying to Christmas

I went to bed last night and woke up this morning not feeling like I'd make it another week. The tightness in my side makes me panicky which I can't do because panicking means breathing harder - not something I have the capacity to do on my left.

Despite this, I listened to Vajrapani sadhana and juiced and spoke to Alice about long term disability which is starting for me today. Isn't THAT crazy? I'm LTD? It feels like a unreal part of society a part I never saw myself in. What does that MEAN? I asked Alice I still want my job, I mean if I make it through this I don't want to lose my job you know? She was like yeah for sure, but I don't think I relayed all that I was thinking. Seriously, I like my job, I like my company, what about my stock... if I die soon, I want to die an employee of sfdc not a long term disabled person. I talked to my cousin how has been on LTD and she calmed some of my concerns. And then I was concerned about when I would get my next pay check, how does this all work? Gosh so much to think about.

2 hours later my boss emails me telling me that my company has given me a bonus and time off to allay my concerns. Can you believe that?? I work for the best company in the entire world!

And then at the end of the day one of my colleagues sent me an email telling me how much I helped his customer which is nice to know that I'm still doing my job well. I'm still a working member. I don't know there's a lot to be said for just feeling normal.

I also went to Spa World today which was awesome and now my body is not so tight on the left side and I feel better.

Well tomorrow I get up bright and early to see my brother who says that my niece is as excited as Christmas that we are coming tomorrow. Christmas! I hope we can live up to that!! :D

Refusenik no more?

Maybe the only option I have for my lungs is chemo and just the maintenance chemo which she says will have less side affects - little fatigue, no nausea, no hair loss. I want to try this nutrition thing and I AM, but puffler's is growing FAST, super FAST. There are spots on my liver, its in my left breast, my brain. I can FEEL it in my side - I barely have the capacity to breathe there's no space left its just pufflers! It moves around and today it's like I'm wearing a shirt that's too tight on my left side and I can't take it off. I want to make a cut on my side and give my lungs space. They need ROOM!
So nutrition may work but I'm in a serious Race, nutrition seems like a marathoner but puffler's is a sprinter!
Tomorrow my mom is going to do a prayer vigil over me, hoping for a miracle. Why can't a miracle happen? I rack my brain, how HOW could I have PUFFLER'S?? Breast cancer,ovarian, some rare cancer but PUFFLER'S? If you smoke, please please stop. Please don't increase the risk that this could happen to you. I tried to do a non smoking commercial but I can't even show you how AWFUL it is, how much pain I'm in, how I can FEEL so strange, how scary and bewildering it is to have this and no options.

The H in HHEAL

It's amazing that I feel happy. I feel at peace. I feel hopeful. Will that all change when I speak with the surgeon and radiologist tomorrow? Who knows, I'm going to revel in what I do know and today was a good peaceful day. I woke up juiced my veggies, had my supplements, did the enema, read my book and then went to pick up Jennifer for her first Spa World experience! We had a good relaxing time, Spa World is soo nice, we were there for 5 hours. Even had a Korean massage (apparently Jennifer's was more authentic than mine hee hee).

Oh I also made a no - smoking commercial, I'm going to post it on youtube. Hopefully it'll reach at least one smoker and he'll stop because he doesn't want to be in pain and not able to breathe. Well g'night!

HHEAL

Yesterday I woke up happy. What a difference a pain makes eh?

I gotta make sure I'm able to "breathe easy" and my ribs and back are "comfortable". (Cindi insists that I voice this positives in the positive. Yes "Momma Cindi") Anyway breathing easy and being comfortable are a key to my happy and manageable mind.

I woke up a little panicked just now. I just want to make sure I see my brother and his family, I want to go on vacation, I want to have good sex and I want to go on a meditation retreat. Isn't that silly. I feel more live LIVING more than I do DYING even though I've got worse news but I want to do it all. And good sex, is that not crazy or what? But I do, I want to see my family, go on vacation, sex and meditation. Those things don't go hand and hand at all! LOL

The only thing I feel I have let to do is leave something to my friends nen notame ne? I have this will that leaves things to my family so that they know but do my friends know how much I love them? I have Really great friends. People should be jealous of me just because of the friends I have. I've never been in love before (and even though for the first time in months I'm actually dreaming about MY future[the mind man, give it bad news and sometimes it'll surprise you]) if I were not to fall in love then having them in my life is a very close 2nd.

See Florie and Cindi above, don't they LOOK loveable (hee hee hee) and SILLY! LOL, bet they didn't expect me to post THESE on my blog. hahaha :D

I'm bringing my camera every where now, get ready loved ones we WILL be taking pictures! I don't care if you look busted that day!! :D


Happy
Healthy
Enlightened
And
Love

maybe next time I'll post of picture of my proposed wedding dress and engagement ring LOL!!

Oh. and I'm also giving love to my lungs. my brain. my left boob. my body. my mind.

And I gotta believe, that my suffering is benefiting others in some way. Some how, some where, some way the discomfort I have is taking the pain away from someone else. IT IS, I can't live thinking that it is not SO I'm going to have faith that someone, somewhere, somehow is not in pain but would have been, not uncomfortable but could have been, happy and might not have been. I believe that, it hurts too much to not believe it,so it is true for me. It's the truth to me.

MRI explains arm

It moved to my brain on the left side which explains why I have the strange nerve thing on my right arm. Well I have a regret. Why didn't I take vacation while I could? Well I will not be working for a while. I'm going to visit my brother and going to the Block Center in Chicago for a hopefully comprehensive assessment of my health. I'm going to a spa in Sedona, I want to treat my family to a vacation abroad preferably. Somewhere in there I'm going to be getting surgery or radiation but still no chemo. I'm willing to try anything BUT things that hurt me.


Happy
Healthy
Enlightened
And
Love

I'm gonna write it in every post. SAY IT WITH ME!! If you speak to me happy me believe it will happen.


Happy
Healthy
Enlightened
And
Love

MRI/ hematocrit

Uggg so scary. I had nightmares about getting it today so hopefully I can get through it.

My hematocrit level is 26.7 Fran says I need a blood transfusion. I looked it up, I'm anemic (ahhh that's why I've been craving ice lately). With all the greens I've had that's surprising but I'm gonna take an iron pill before I leave for the hospital.

The pain patch is working!! I feel like almost a normal person (except I can't breathe when I walk outside because of the intense humidity.)

Happy
Healthy
Enlightened
And
Love


Wish me luck

The positive

So on the positive side. I will definitely be able to get the doctor to sign the 6 month thing so I can get money to enjoy my end of life.
I'm going to turn the guest room into a suite with a Japanese ofuro! Yayy! I can't wait to soak in my tub - CLEAN! I'm going to go on vacation to sedona and yellowstone. i want to see an american onsen. I want to see the amazon. i want to go on meditation retreat. i don't know where else yet. I want to make this as much like a queen latifah movie as possible. i want to become an organ donor, how do I change that on my license?

OMG you should see my body, it is FINE. I hate to have to say it myself... well, no I don't but it is 6 pack city and little to no body fat. I guess that's what comes with organics and juicing. Fine, I say. Once the pain goes away then I'm gonna have fun fun fun until i die die die.

I'M gonna do a cartwheel even!

Waking up

I finally slept last night with no pain.

Only to wake up.

I hate waking up. Why can't I go instantly?? Why can't I go in my sleep? Why do I have to die so horribly? When I'm in pain, which is pretty much every waking moment and many sleepy moments too,I dream of ways I could die instantly
a car jacking
random gang shooting (what? I don't have to be in a gang, innocent people die in that)
a heart attack in my sleep
an aneurysm in my sleep

Instead I'm in pain, I walk up the stairs and its an effort to breathe. I hate this life now. I hate waking up.

I can't understand the point. Why am I being made to suffer? I'm not helping anyone by suffering I'm just making the last of what was a good life, horrible.

In the ER, the doctor said, come to the ER immediately if you can't breathe. I looked at him, I have lung cancer, I can't breathe well now. He's like if you're sitting and can't breathe. ?? Why the hell would I do that - so I can prolong this even MORE. Oh yeah, that's a great suggestion, let me just drown to death SLOWER. Lovely.

I said the mantra today (Happy, Healthy, Enlightened And Love), I don't believe it, but I said it.

You think it will work? It'll take a miracle.

Dead End

So the hospital was wrong about the approval, the insurance didn't deny me. I was in pain today though and nothing I take the hydrocodone, the oxycodone, the ibuprofen, nothing stopped the pain. The pain is constant it's not excrutiating but it is constantly there I can't get comfortable... I'm begging to die instantly NOT LIKE THIS but no one is listening to me. I know that I've done something really horrible in this or previous lives. I hope that this torcher will mean that my next life will be better.

The nutritionist says I should speak something positive so my body believes it - did I speak too negative and my body believes that??

I went to the ER today to get an x ray on my spine to figure out the issue with my arm being numb. No tumors there, but puffler's has grown. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

I'm at a dead end!!! What can I do?? Every turn I make in this - I have no mutation, chemo only worked once, no chemo has it growing. What can I do?? I can't even take away the pain of others by becoming a Buddha. I'm useless, I'm frustrated and I hate my life. I hate my life. I hate it. What can I do??

At the ER I thought about the positive things I want. I want to be happy, healthy, in love, and enlightened. Ebony says this is HEAL or HHEAL

Happy
Healthy
Enlightened
And
Love

Can I get them in this lifetime? It doesn't even seem like I can get even health now. well wish me luck sleeping

Insurance Denied

This morning Virginia Hospital Center called to tell me that my insurance denied covering my Cat scan. They denied the PET previously and had approved the CAT but now...

I have new lumps on my breast, I have this weird nerve thing happening with my arm, the pain has returned but I have been working. I have been paying into insurance and working and been a productive member of society. I feel like by denying it they are saying that I'm not - I'm a drag on the system, a dead weight (HA!), I'm the person the people who protest the medical reform are thinking of - let's get rid of those people who keep getting sick.

I kept the appointment. What can I do? I need to know if it's grown, I need to know if I have fluid that can be drained. ... I hope my doctor does sign my life insurance policy saying I have 6 months to live, if my insurance is going to already start denying procedures (even routine ones) I'm going to need the money...hell if they deny procedures I may only HAVE 6 months anyway. This time, if they don't approve it, I'll pay for it myself $5-6K in all. I guess I need to start liquidating assets...

POW

I'm a prisoner of war.

I was caught unexpectedly - at an innocuous enough place but it turned out to be a trap. Now I'm slowly being tortured. All day there is a pin in my back and in my chest underneath my breast - I can't remove it and it aches. At random times it digs deeper, 'how do they do that?'. They make it worse by letting me have "normal" days - I can work, I can play and I forget...then they will press hard on my lungs causing me to cough, lose my breathe, gag. They love working at night, while I try to sleep. No position is too comfortable either the pain will be gone and the coughing and phlegm back or the coughing is gone but the pain is back. I have to make a decision - in which position can I sleep better? The answer is none. They know this. There are no other prisoners in my prison - no sounds of others being put through this same torture. But when I work, in the distance I see others, they are being freed...when will that be me?

This was a bad week. The pain has come back and woke me up Tuesday night, I ended up driving around DC sleepy and in pain. I thought, maybe if my life were threatened I'd want to beat this more and not give in, not beg for this to be over. I spoke to my therapist about it and she said even people who really want to live wouldn't have made as many lifestyle changes as I have in the past 3 weeks so I guess the bad neighborhood idea isn't useful. Bad neighborhoods in DC are hard to find these days anyway.


Ups - This week was mostly downs but ups are
1. Dodgeball, the happy pill. I wish I had more things like this in my life or I could figure out how to harness my concentration in the same way to be able to forget the breathing, forget the pain.
2. I sent out an email for my friends to help and don't feel so in it by myself
3. The nutritionist, who is so positive that I'll get better. Where is she when I'm getting stabbed in the chest at 3 am?
4. I'm still able to do this diet thing, which is pretty impressive for someone who's never changed their diet ever
5. Prayers for World Peace sunday morning - I realize I need to go to more Buddhist events because they make me feel better.

Wednesday morning I went to acupuncture (thank goodness I had the prethought to schedule 2 sessions this week). When the needles are in, all the pain is gone and I can get a real sleep. I wish he could just come to my house right before bed, put the needles in and then take them out the next morning. After seeing him I took the day off and laid in the exact same position as I do when I'm there, hoping to channel that enough so I could go to sleep. It worked pretty well.
The Ulman Fund sponsored or told us about a pre-screening of the movie 50/50 about this young guy (well, about my age) diagnosed with cancer and given a 50 50 chance. It was good, I could relate. The Dali Lama was in town so afterwards Bob helped me try to find Stupa ear rings...after looking in all the booths, they probably just don't make them.

Today I went to the nutritionist who for homework wanted me to think of a mantra... on the other hand my therapist wanted me to think of something positive to come from the coughing and pain - the team tibet (puffler, me and lung) and turning into a Buddha apparently wasn't a good mantra ( it does work OK for when I'm in pain though)

So I'm still working on the mantra, she says it doesn't have to be something I believe right now but something I say until I believe it. This sounds logical to me.

Speaking of logic - doesn't puffler know that if he grows too much he'll kill both of us?He's not a very smart parasite, why can't we work together? Why can't we live together?

The medicine is kicking in now. 'Night

Help and other stuff

On the 4th weekend my friend came into town and we went to the museums. I was like the old lady with a walker - if I walk VERY slowly up stairs it doesn't take my breathe away as much. What happened to being able to bike and run up and down the stairs 3x before I got out of breathe? What was the point of the chemo if I'm now right back where I started?? Even the pain has come back (granted a skipped a session of acupunture this week) but I'M TIRED.

I went to NC and stayed with Cindi this week and realized I missed the morning juice (it masks the taste of ALL the supplements and makes them easy to get down). Eating organic wasn't so hard in another location so if I had a portable juicer that would be perfect.

It was nice to visit Cindi and it was nice to get help on all the questions I've had. What is the Gerson method? Am I doing it with the stuff the nutritionist just gave me? Will it help puffler's or just other types of cancers? It was nice to have someone else do the researching for those. Having puffler's is like having a job - a REALLY horrible job that makes you miserable but if you quit, you die and not a quick death but a horrible, prolonged fit of coughing and gasping for breathe death. So I have this job I should be researching and buying stuff to improve my health and I'm not doing it well...I'm overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed by the thought I have to put into meals, grocery shopping, excercises, bills, claim forms,will, financial stuff and even my house. Gosh if only someone else could call the exterminator, could look for a Green cleaning service, could call the plumber when there is a leak? If someone else could find the claim forms I need to submit. I thought about getting a personal assistant, but what could they do? They can't find the forms to put my IRA in my trust, can they?

Visiting Cindi made me realize I'm not asking any of my friends and family for help.
Except taking me to the doctor but I need a lot more than that. Right now, I'm alone.
And I know why I don't ask -
1.I don't want to burden people, they are busy and this thing could go on for a long time. I could be the burden friend for a long time
2.What can I ask them to do? Can they organize my puffler bills? I need to know if I've paid the deductible this year so I can stop getting bills.
3.I've never had this type of problem. I'm the person who sees the problem, OK let's solve it. Problem - Solution. I've also hated when people overly complain about a problem instead of doing something about it and now that's who I'm becoming but I can't find the solution. At Cindi's there was a bird that kept trying to get in through the glass window, he just couldn't understand why he couldn't just walk from the sill outside to the one inside so he'd fly up and down and up and down confused. That's what I feel like - I'm confused, what do I do in this situation? HOW CAN I BREATHE!!

The nutritionist wanted me to come up with a mantra - I think the best is
Team Tibet - puffler, lung and me - we have to work together. I started seeing a therapist and she wanted me to try to think of something positive when I have the coughing fits or am out of breath from just walking. I don't know yet - those are my lowest of lows. Cindi suggested that my suffering help all living beings...but I'm not a Buddha, will that be true? Can my suffering prevent anyone else's suffering? If that is true, then I need to believe it. If I believe it that would be good to think of.

What kind of Buddhist am I anyway? I keep thinking, I'm not doing enough. I'm just doing my daily meditation ( which I didn't do while at Cindi's but it was just a few days) but still what would Buddha do? He probably would have a calm mind. How do I get that calm mind when I can't breathe? You know the irony is that the basic meditation is a breathing meditation - which is the hardest thing for me now. To concentrate on my breath often starts a coughing fit just through concentrating on it....
I was up early this morning - at 2 because I started coughing and the pain kept me up a little when I wrote this.

This morning I went to Prayers for World Peace and couldn't meditate on the breathe so I pictured myself as Vajrayogini (my image is usually sitting on a hill like one out of the sound of music with birds chirping) Anyway I thought I can't take away other's pain as I am but I CAN as a Buddha and I do have HYT empowerment so that's what I'm going to do. When I start coughing uncontrollably or walking and can't breathe well, or feel the pain in my chest and back I'm going to turn into a Buddha and THEN take away others' pain, and feel the happiness from helping others.

Yesterday, Cindi and I researched the Block Center which Suzanne recommended and that looked promising, I'll call them tomorrow.