Chapter 18 - This Witch is Healing Her Cancer
VERY GOOD news...
Thurs, Sept 12, 2024
I’ve been an emotional mess the past couple of months - this has all been going on too long and I am shot. Pet Scan tomorrow at Bassett in Cooperstown at 7:30 am, and I will find out if my choices for cancer treatment have been working. Cooperstown’s an hour from where I live and I didn’t want to have to get up at 5 am to be ready to leave at 6:15 am so I decided to stay at the Hannah Lee House again. After last time I knew to take my own sheets, pillows, and coverlets. It made a difference.
Friday, Sept 13, 2024
Pet Scan Day
Before you get a Pet Scan you drink something called FDG.
“…FDG is similar to glucose, but it can't be metabolized further after entering cells. This causes FDG to accumulate in cells, especially in malignant cells that have increased glucose transporter proteins and higher rates of glycolysis. This is why FDG is commonly used in PET scans to detect cancer….”
I didn’t have the same pet scan person as last time, the person was male, nice but sloppy, clearly sleep deprived, and it was way harder for me to stay still in the tube, but I did it. When it was over, I went straight to the cafeteria and bought a large, black coffee and two doughnuts thick with frosting. I haven’t had sugar since I was diagnosed a little over a year ago and I just didn’t fucking care – I was having those doughnuts. They were delicious, nothing organic or fresh about them: thick white frosting with sprinkles, on a glazed doughnut, and hot black coffee. I moaned a little.
The results were up on my portal on Saturday.
INDICATION: Rectal cancer, assess treatment response. Neuroendocrine cancer. 71-year-old female. Status post radiation.
TECHNIQUE: PET/CT imaging was performed from the skull base to the thighs following intravenous injection of 10.6 mCi fluorine-18 deoxyglucose. The CT portion of the study was performed f or attenuation correction and localization purposes.
COMPARISON: PET/CT dated 1/19/2024. CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis dated 5/18/2024.
FINDINGS:
HEAD AND NECK: No suspicious FDG activity identified in the neck or imaged intracranial portions.
CHEST: No FDG avid pulmonary nodule or lung masses. No FDG avid lymphadenopathy.
ABDOMEN AND PELVIS: No suspicious FDG uptake in the abdomen or pelvis. Excreted urinary activity is identified. Mild FDG uptake in the region of rectum, with SUV max of 4.4, previously 8.4. Previously seen rectal mass is no longer identified.
SKELETAL: No suspicious FDG activity identified. Skeletal degenerative changes.
IMPRESSION:
Overall response to therapy, with mild FDG uptake in the region of
rectum, with no obvious mass is identified on corresponding CT images. No FDG avid metastatic disease.
I had to read the report a few times before I was able to understand that the cancer had not metastasized anywhere in my body and that the tumor is gone. I have been so vigilant re: research, protocols, and supplements, so fixated and focused, it didn’t compute. My brain has been spinning obsessively in one direction and it didn’t know how to respond except to ask, what is SUV Max?
I am quite out of it for the rest of the day, and all day Sunday, not sure if I can believe what I’m reading or if I’m reading it correctly.
Monday, Sept 16, 2024
“This is a dream scan,” Dr. V said. “The tumor is gone and there’s no metastasis.”
“What does SUV 4.4 mean?”
“The tumor pulled in 8.4 of the FDG in the first pet scan. Now, the tumor is gone but there’s still inflammation in the area.”
“Dr V. did I tell you the radiation turned the tumor into an origami marble? And then it morphed into an origami change purse? The THC suppositories are what finally killed it. What am I supposed to do now?”
“Watch and wait and keep doing what you’re doing.”
“My energy still sucks. I have 4 hours out and about and then I can’t do much of anything but sit. Ever since the emergency appendectomy (9 weeks after 6 weeks of radiation) I have cramping, like menstrual cramps, and I still lose track of what I’m talking about in the middle of a sentence. My nether regions work, but not like they used to.”
“All side effects of the radiation.”
“That’s what I thought, but I was waiting on the pet scan to find out.”
Dr V knows I had acupuncture after every radiation treatment. He knows I took 300 mgs of melatonin two hours before treatment and did not take vitamin E because that would have interfered with radiation. He knows I’m doing Joe Tippen’s protocol, and a whole lot of other things. I make copies of the studies and take them too him.
“Dr V., I said, “there should be a research department here at the hospital investigating all the alternatives that are popping up. This is a teaching hospital for heaven’s sakes. I’ll run it for you.”
He laughed. Annetta his nurse said, “They want money, not research.”
Group hug and I was on my way. My next scan is in January, 2025. Insurance only allows 1 scan every 6 months. Insurance companies are evil. If you ever wonder why treatment is staggered the way it is, look to the insurance companies.
Tues Sept 17, 2024
Am I dancing on the ceiling after this pet scan? No, I’m not. I am delighted to know that my choices, based on my research are working, and I am cautiously optimistic, but I also know this disease and how it works. Intuitively, I know the cancer is still in my body so I will continue my protocol for active cancer for another year. One of the affirmations I’ve used during my healing is – with every breath I take, I am eliminating cancer from my body. My new affirmation is - with every breath I take, I am eliminating cancer and the conditions that allowed it to grow, in my body.
Grateful? Oh, Goddess yes, I am so grateful. To the angels, the Virtues, the Lady in all her glory. Her beloved the Lord, my guides, and all my dead ancestors, who are currently gathering for Samhain in my living room, despite the fact that it’s not even October yet. I’m grateful to me for showing up, for sticking with the research, for obsessing over protocols and supplements and diets. I’m grateful for Medicaid picking up my Medicare co-pay, and my Snap card. I’m grateful to all the people who subscribed to the blog, private conversations, and everyone who sent money – all cancer patients need money. Fuck the cards and the flowers, send money.
The last couple of months (before the pet scan) I feel like I’ve been swimming in the poison of the collective unconscious; a nasty soup of resentment, bitterness, powerlessness, and envy. I feel like I was kidnapped, shaken to the marrow of my bones, and woke up, treading poisonous waters, in a black rock grotto, not sure how I got here. Cancer shattered the template that was me, and intuitively I know its time to re-immerse self and soul into the sacred and see where it takes me. It’s not about getting back to who I was; it’s about being who I am right now, and moving forward.
RE: Ancestral healing. I awoke to the awareness that I was in a constellation with my mother and my grandmother.
“In Jungian psychology, a constellation is the activation of a personal complex or archetypal content. A complex is a group of emotionally charged thoughts, memories, wishes, and perceptions that are associated with each other…”
I’m writing down what I know of my mother, my grandmother, and me. I didn’t really know my grandmother, my mother couldn’t stand her, she was an alcoholic. I don’t know anything about the maternal side of my family but the connections, the templates of being that create and recreate are coming visible. Revelations so powerful I have to lie down with my hand on my heart, and just breathe.
I am totally guided these days and secure in that guidance. Coach Chela has been a godsend of a cannabis coach. I did a wonderful tapping workshop with the wonderful Melanie Moore, and I’m about to do an online workshop for ancestral healing with another woman. I am familiar with most of the healing modalities out there because I’ve been practicing and teaching them for over 40 years. Gertrude was right – there is no there – and when the Lady calls upon my soul to arise, and come unto Her, I listen.
For all of y’all who’ve been reading me this year, for all of y’all sending me prayers and energy, thank you. Oh, and if you haven’t gotten a reading recently, get one!
Live loud, love fierce and suffer no fools. Kat x0x0x0
This makes my heart happy!!! Picture me grinning from ear to ear sister!!! Love you!! ❤️❤️❤️
This is amazing news Kat. Stay vigilant (as you already do).