Cancer Survivor-ship and What It Means to Me

I have recently been the recipient of some very good news . As some of you may know I have been somewhat embarrassed and considerably inconvenienced by a recurrence of kidney cancer after a 20 year dormancy. My first battle was with a 20 pound rascal that went metastatic back in 1995.After the best treatments of the day had failed and I was given up for dead, I managed to put together an effective program of guided imagery to solve the problem. You can perhaps imagine all the feelings that went through my now aged brain as I tried to muster up another win, this time with an 81 year old body. Against my better judgement, I started a sutent program that worked well until it didn’t. One year ago, side effects from sutent had put me in the hospital without the use of my legs. I am still learning to walk again. I pulled the plug on sutent, after taking some time off and went for a low dose program of inylta, which is far more tolerable. I sometimes give myself holidays under the presumption that what the oncologist doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

There are many things the additional 20 years of life that have brought me most involved personal happiness. But it has also afforded me the time to resume theoretical work on one of my research efforts that was interrupted by cancer back in 1993. This involves a fairly straight forward system for extracting water out of thin air. Over the next 20 years I can see scarcity of potable drinking water emerging as a world wide crisis.

I think more important is the complimentary approaches. I made some new Guided Imagery CDs specific for the purpose and have used them several times a day, day after day. Some of you might be interested in the fact that for every pill taken during this ordeal, we have held it in our hands and all present have participated in a quiet time of prayer for healing as in James 5 in the New Testament.
Now for the good news. By every site scanned, the radiologist wrote “great” as the shrinkage was everywhere remarkable. So much so that my oncologist assured me that I would most likely die of something beside rcc. He even pulled back on the ongoing dose and did not think it necessary to come back for 3 months which will give this poor old body a rest
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As terrifying as the first diagnosis of cancer can be, I think that recurrence after years of dormancy can in some respects be worse. Many people just give up rather than go back into that fierce battle. My purpose in making this post is to encourage those people who find themselves in this, the ultimate disappointment. First, I urge you to remember that you have beaten it once, you can do it again. You still have your personal and spiritual resources and medicine is making some progress, although at a slow pace. Never give up nor let any thing or anyone take your hope away. Your hope belongs to you and while you can choose to give it away, it cannot be taken without your consent.

It is a grand sight to see an oncologists face beaming like the morning sun and I took the opportunity to tell him how much I admired his determination and compassion in putting up with me. We then had a few minutes of beautiful conversation wherein my purpose was to give him something that I felt he needed, and there was cemented a beautiful friendship. The intervening years and wonderful people who have come into my life have taught me that I was, indeed, blessed by a 20 pound rcc tumor.
Should anyone ask, “Who wants to live to 84?”, the answer is, a person who is 83.
IT IS POSSIBLE!

YOU CAN DEFEAT CANCER!!

Happy National Cancer Survivor-ship Day!!

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