Weekly Update on Heather's Cancer Journey

Good afternoon friends and family!  I started the day with a nice long walk on the trail behind our house, listening the entire time to God's word and praying.  For those of you going through something similar, I highly recommend immersing yourself in God's word.  While I walked I listened to this video: https://youtu.be/0gQILVCBH8k. It's basically just tons of healing scriptures read by John Hagee. I've also listened to these from "Soakstream" over the past couple of weeks, but honestly the guy's voice eventually starts to put me to sleep: https://youtu.be/Ig6EZ3P1vz4.  So many verses stood out this morning on my walk.  The first is in Proverbs 3.  Starting in verse 5 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."  Most Christians know this verse and have it hidden in their hearts. But, the verses following those really got my attention this morning. Verses 7-8 say, "Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones."  

How I'm feeling:

My bones have been really aching lately.  So, of course, that verse got my attention (more on God's word in a bit). It's strange to me that before my PET scan, I didn't necessarily feel many of the cancerous areas on my bones.  But, since then, my bones have been aching randomly in the cancerous areas.  Not all at once, but I will have pain in my sacrum, and then sharp pain in my hip....then later random rib pain.  It feels like a toothache if you have ever had one of those---that deep throbbing awful pain.  But, it usually doesn't last long.  It comes and goes.  I'm on probably too many Facebook groups related to my cancer and natural healing, trying to gather data from enough people to figure out what is working for them, as well as get others' experience of the drugs I am going to be on.  One thing I have read is that when cancer is "dying off" you can get die off pains.  I really pray that is what the pains are.  Unfortunately, it sounds like you can feel those same pains when the cancer is growing.  But, the good news is I see a lot of people talking about die off pain.  It's interesting that I wasn't having this pain in all these areas before (just mainly had the pains in my legs, which is the area I didn't even get scanned.)  So, these pains have been occurring since I have been on exemestane (the aromatase inhibitor), having a ton of people pray for me and have been adding new supplements, juicing and eating plant based.  By eating plant-based, I'm removing a ton of inflammatory foods.  Many of you know that back in 2012-2013 our family changed the way we ate, eliminating sugar and eating just real food (organic--and when eating meat we eat organic, pasture raised or if beef, grass-fed. If you look through old blog posts from 2013, you can read a lot about that journey.) Over the past year prior to my recent diagnosis, we ate more "treats" out, we ate out more in general, I started eating less and less veggies (although still a very healthy diet) and overall my diet was probably more inflammatory.  And sometimes, I just didn't eat enough because I just got in a rut and didn't feel like eating (hello, cancer).  I'm praying these changes to which God has directed me will help heal my body. I believe God alone can heal me through the prayers and total faith and belief in His healing, but I also believe that we should take the very best care of these bodies God has created--and if He reveals something to us that we should be doing to take the very best care of our bodies, then we should do it.

Other than the awful bone pain, my energy level has been great!  Working out in the morning helps.  I've been eating more---and everything I am eating is super nutritious.  Drew is so awesome and really is the best husband ever!  He spends time in the morning making my juices for the day.  Right now the juice includes a TON of carrots, a green apple, ginger root, turmeric root, cabbage, romaine, and sometimes other greens like escarole, or chard.  Sometimes for lunch I will eat a smoothie that has a tons of greens in it, as well as some berries.  So I feel like the nutrition I am getting is definitely helping my energy level.  Also, in my post last weekend I mentioned that my weight was dropping daily.  I was hovering at 95/96 in the mornings.  Well, I am happy to announce that at the beginning of the week my weight started creeping up slightly and I am no longer on the downward trend but holding pretty steady.

What am I doing for Treatment?

From the conventional side of things, I am still planning on trying my Oncologist's plan of the aromatase inhibitor plus the CDK inhibitor (brand Verzenio).  I have actually been taking the aromatase inhibitor since mid June. Although, I will say that having the meeting with the oncology pharmacist this week scared me quite a bit about Verzenio.  For example, she said I have to use gloves when I take it so I don't get it on my skin and then transfer it to someone else (since it can be absorbed through the skin).  Also, I can't be in crowds and I can't be around anyone who is sick.  I will be getting weekly bloodwork to make sure my kidneys and liver are doing okay on it and that my white blood cell counts and red blood cell counts are still okay.  Basically, it seems this drug can potentially harm every part of my body and immune system.  And I definitely need these things to fight the cancer. Oh, and they also gave me a ton of anti-diarrhea medications when they handed me the prescription.  Thankfully, the doctor is easing me into it by doing half the dose and only three days this first week.  But still, Drew and I have reservations about it and will continue to pray that God direct us to the right treatment.  Drew's work offers an awesome benefit, which provides getting a second opinion at no cost to us.  So, I have started the work to do that as well since it is of no cost to us.  It never hurts to have several options.  Also, I have appointments next week with Naturopathic doctors.  A big difference in these docs and your traditional docs is that my traditional doc is trying to just get the cancer to be stable or go away to below detection levels.  She doesn't care what I eat or drink and is not even trying to figure out what may have caused the cancer.  There is no medication that kills cancer stem cells in the traditional oncology world (did you know there are proven natural substances that actually kill cancer stem cells see here, here, and here for example.  The trick for me is figuring out proper amounts/dosages).  A naturopathic doctor will try to discover the what may be going on in my body to cause inflammation.  I imagine we will be doing testing for fungal infections, viruses, bacterial and parasitic infections and taking meds/supplements to rid my body of those.  How can my immune system focus on ridding my body of cancer cells if it is tied up dealing with any of those things I just listed?  In addition, I am trying to find a naturopath (I found several) that can do a RGCC (the greek test) on my blood. Their onconomics test will expose my blood sample to cancer treatments and natural therapies, recording how effective they are at targeting cancer cells.  This will show me the therapies that have the greatest chance at killing the cancer.  Based on my extensive research this week (I seriously feel like I am cramming for very important test), I have come up with a list of important supplements, I have figured out my diet plan moving forward, as well as some natural therapies I want to include (Ozone therapy, infrared sauna and hyperthermia, and IV infusions).  I have been trying to decide whether I can do these things locally or will need to go somewhere for a few weeks to get an intensive treatment.  I will have to post details about all this in a later post.  Just know I have been in contact with a countless number of these types of natural treatment facilities and am even still waiting on one to review all of my reports and give me a recommendation of treatment.

How is the rest of the family doing?

This week we managed to squeeze in some fun family time, playing Mini Golf together, playing games, going on our normal evening walks, having some family swim time, having some friend time swimming, playing and going to the water park.  Although the news was hard, we are going to try to keep things as normal as possible.  This means we are still planning on homeschooling, doing our normal homeschool groups and co-ops, church, fun events, etc.  I pray that if I start this new medication, I do not have any negative side effects.  If my immune system gets too low, I imagine it may limit our ability to do certain things since I can't be around germs and risk getting sick.

Abbey at Monster Mini Golf this week.

The last hole at Monster Mini Golf

At Typhoon Texas on Friday

And here is one second from every day in June in our house...

Prayer requests for this week:

• Please pray that God will guide us in treatment decisions--where to go and what to do
• Please pray that I will have NO side effects from Verzenio.  
• Please continue to pray and BELIEVE in complete healing and eradication of all the cancer (and circulating cancer stem cells) in my body

 

Some other verses the Lord highlighted to me during my morning walk:

Mark 9:23: Jesus said unto them, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes."

Psalm 118:8: It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.

Matthew 13:58: And He did not many great works there because of their unbelief

And especially this one:

Psalm 118:17 I shall not die, but I shall live, and I will proclaim what the Lord has done!