Two weeks for an alkaline detox diet – I am still following it (‘maintenance diet for life’). I guess that is where I stopped on my last post. First round of chemo – two drugs dropping for six hours, and the last one with you for 46 hours! Can’t be more toxic than that but there is a good reason for that toxicity and there we go…
Two days before chemo, we had an appointment with a naturopath, phone number on that list from that friend of a friend. The naturopath said a few interesting things and gave us another book to follow: Beating cancer with nutrition, Patrick Quillin. My husband should not lose weight and he was already loosing it, so no alkaline diet for now. The only serious restriction is sugar and anything that is meant to stay on a grocery shelf for months! Another interesting thing: he said he was going to treat 99% of Ricardo’s body, leaving the 1% for the chemo. Let’s make his body strong again, to be able to fight this cancer!
During our life, we will beat several cancers. Cancers are, in fact, part of us. Something goes wrong with our own cells. Terribly wrong. Our own cells start duplicating like crazy and we stop fighting it. Cancer cells lose the ability to ‘commit suicide’, like all the other cells in our body. So, they reproduce but they don’t ‘kill themselves’ after a while. Cancer is an inflammation. Cancer feeds on sugar. Cancer needs little blood vessels to feed themselves. Cancer, cancer, cancer – my new ‘buddy’! To learn about it, I rely on one of my favorite books so far: Anticancer – A new way of life, David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD. For some reason, Ricardo’s body stopped fighting – can easily be emotional. Can be the environment and all the chemicals that we are exposed to during our life. Can be everything together. ‘It is estimated that it takes 5 to 40 years for a cancer cell to become a dangerous tumor’, says David Servan-Shcreiber in his book Anticancer. And it seems that the medicine, the way we know it and being as advanced as we think it is, will need something between 5 to 10 years to find out a cancer like his. It is a long time…
First week of chemo, Ricardo simply stop having pain killers. No pain at all (it came back on the second week though, just to be gone again this week, when he did the chemo again). Chemo is not a medication for pain, just to be clear here. His mind was not in a good shape, though, and took him a few weeks or months to understand this whole food story. I guess he is still learning about it, which I can’t blame him. As a 51-year-old Brazilian male that never learned to take care of himself – please note that I am saying ‘take care’, not even mentioning ‘take GOOD care’!
But he is brave and he is fighting, one day at a time, one green tea and pau d’arco tea at a time. One good plate of organic food at a time. And one round of chemo at a time, the hardest one…
Then, the second round of chemo came. Fridays are our days of chemo, in Calgary, every second week. After a snowstorm, everything is harder. Winter coming, short days, everything is tiring. But there we were for our appointment, and seven long hours of a hospital bed and nice nurses… The end of the treatment is the beginning of a long ride home, missing our son and the comfort of our warm home. And the second round goes… After 46 hours, Ricardo drove himself to the Canmore’s hospital to take out the pump. Yes, his spirit was up this time and it was nice to be at his side, since Friday. Thanks God, as He knows how much effort we have to do…
Just a parenthesis here to mention that Ricardo’s spirit is in good mood since he decided to open his condition to friends and say things that he didn’t dare until then. Miraculous pill, this one called truth and openness.
It is also nice to hear from my parents that the house is still full of life and good vibes. As a friend used to say, ‘life is too short for long faces’. Having a three year-old at home helps, for sure, but our attitude counts. Tons. And as another very good friend said, ‘life keeps going on, but now you have another ingredient added to it’. Its name is cancer. Nice to meet you, Mr. Cancer. My name is Helena and I am absolutely fascinated to get the chance to know you better…