End of the Year Reflections

Dear Family and Friends,

A very Happy New Year to all of you!  How wonderful to see a new year,  to turn over a new page, and hopefully, an entirely new chapter!  2012 will always be remembered for its hard-earned lessons and surprising blessings, as well as its "task master" quality in the school of life.  Just six months ago, as my life literally hung in the balance, I wondered if I'd see 2013....  And here we sit on its threshold.  

These past six months were definitely harder, more challenging, than anything I could have imagined.   Moments lingered, days seemed to stand still, I "faced the firey dragon" as they say. As the year ends, I'm aware of how integration of it all isn't something I can rush through or stuff away somewhere.  So I hold it gently...even the fears and tears, and ways I could have risen up more valiantly to meet each challenge.  I feel my breath, feel the warm gratitude that fills my heart for all that is good and kind, and count my many blessings.

One of those blessings, as you can see from the above photo (taken this weekend) is that I have my smile back (from the facial paralysis this past fall)... despite the doom and gloom scenerios given by traditional medicine.  The picture was taken when  Peter and I visited my dear Aunt Jean in Los Angeles, with cousin Alan, his wife Rachel and  dear little daughter, Tilly. This past year gave me such a deep appreciation for love, family and the tiniest pleasures of life.

After my last chemotherapy appointment on December 13, Peter and I spent 13 hours in the Emergency room -- again!  I was diagnosed with "chemical menigitis" -- Chemical meningitis results from any of a wide variety of foreign irritants causing inflammation to the tissue covering the brain and spinal cord. In my case, it was caused by the chemotherapy I had just days before.  It came with the worst headache of my life!   After the last five lumbar punctures with chemo have resulted in incredible pain and potentially serious side effects, I made a momentous decision to stop chemo, at least for now.  My body has been clearly telling me:  ENOUGH! 

Dr. Polikoff wants me to be on it for the rest of my life.   As with many cancer patients, quality of life issues begin to become more prominent, and this is certainly the case with me.  My decision to go off of it is my version of a free fall into faith.   It was not a mental or analytical decision, necessarily, though I certainly have been weighing all my options like someone studying for the Bar! But was rather a more intuitive approach -- a listening to that voice within, beyond logic.  Sometimes there is just no way to know, objectively, what is best.  This is one of those times for me.

I eventually decided not to go ahead with the new T-Cell clinical trial in Philadelphia as it became financially prohibitive and the side effects are a bit too risky for me, in my opinion.  It's a phase I trial.  The other treatment I've been considering -- Rituxan anti-body -- is still a "Plan B" option should I ever need it in the future.

For now I'm focusing entirely on periodic cold energy treatments and am moving full force with the Mederi protocol.  Along those lines, my ceruloplasim (copper) levels from the tetrathiomolybdate (or copper chelation) have dropped to the target range, which is great!  For those of you who know people with cancer and are interested in learning more about innovative (clinically tested) treatments, I strongly recommend this article about antiangiogenesis:  http://www.cancerfoundation.com/copperprotocol.html

Long story short, cancer cells (tumors and "colonies" of cancer cells as in Leukemia) need a blood supply.  Copper helps in the creation of what is called angiogenesis. Cut the copper levels, and this blood supply is cut off, creating antiangiogenesis, without adverse effects to one's health.  My copper level went from 31 to 10 in just two months.  Scientists have seen that if they can keep the copper level around 7-10 (or 20% below normal levels) for three years, relapses of cancer do not occur.  It is most effective when there is no evidence of cancer, as when one is in remission, such as myself.

I am also taking a break from the weight of daily/weekly smaller decisions until after the New Year....decisions like changing my oncologist, telling Dr. Polikoff I want a break from chemo, and a number of other matters concerning my health.  Everything was simply becoming too much when added to dealing with health, healing and living.  I have felt immeasureably better, happier, stronger for the last week or so. 

All I have gone through these last two years has molded me as nothing else could. Perhaps I could have grown just as much without all the turmoil.  I'll never know...  I'm inspired these words of a wise Buddhist teacher:  "I think that suffering is the only path to maturation....it catalytzes our capacity to mature, to develop equanimity, to develop qualities of presence in the midst of conditions which seem untenable."

It's surely one of those paradoxes:   how do I continue to gather my inner resources of resilence, self-compassion, courage, faith and hope in the midst of seemingly "untenable" conditions?   What an amazing spiritual practice this can be -- yet nothing could be more rewarding, soulfully, humanly, than to reach that deep acceptance of all the conditions in our lives, especially those with shadows, pain or confusion.

What I love about the non-dual approach to life is that it seeks a deep acceptance of all that comes -- not only transcendence or transformation as the first inclination.  That can too easily lead to separation or spiritual bypass.  But a full bodied soak in the mud of life where we feel the full dimension of being human and we come out cleaner, more integrated, more empathic of others' plights.  I'm convinced that it's in welcoming (even if not joyously) rather than resisting, that our mud is ultimately transformed into gold.

I skipped along merrily (well, almost) once out of the hospital in 2011 and in outpatient treatment.  Then last spring, and the relapse,  "Leukemia" seemed to settle back into my life like ink infiltrates a glass of water.   Yet where I am now is the sum of all the steps I have taken thus far and in some ways I feel a new and greater strength.  For some mysterious reason, we are often not given to see all the whys and wherefores of our journey.  Thus a greater faith grows in us.

My dear ones, I love you all and wish you deep solace, love and joy in the New Year.

Heidi