Prisoners of Hope

It's finally the weekend. Another week down, and it's been an interesting week. This evening we watched NCAA basketball in the dark for Earth hour. (Unfortunately the tv did not get turned off, and for the record West Virginia upset Kentucky.)

I'm going to share some info that is encouraging to us, but is a little difficult to write. There are a few reasons for this. If you're anything like me, you're skeptical by nature and might have a hard time believing this. Plus some of this post is more graphic in nature than I'd normally discuss, let alone write about. But we're sharing and we want people to pray effectively so here goes...

I'll have to back up a bit. After Dave had been on the raw food diet for a few weeks we noticed the he had no bad breath, or body odour, and this is silly, but didn't 'pass gas' anymore either. Now this might seem weird, but this is actually something that raw foodists comment on, that they have no bad breath or body odour because of what you're putting in your body - and what you're not putting in. (During initial detox however, you likely will have odours.)

Now fast forward a month and things seem to be changing. We have been trying to figure out why Dave is not starting to feel significantly better after stopping chemotherapy - he's eating the healthiest food around.(Organic raw vegetables and fruit, and juicing.) At his last visit at the cancer clinic a few weeks ago, they said his lungs etc... were clear and he seemed relatively healthy. But he doesn't seem to be getting better or stronger, and in fact things seem to be getting worse. He started vomiting, and the episodes seemed to be increasing in frequency. And when he coughs his breath has become awful. As some of you are aware, Dave hasn't been able to swallow his own saliva for about 3 weeks. (Actually, he CAN swallow, but he tries not to, because it doesn't get past the tumor. It collects, and then makes him sick, so he spits in a cup instead.) To avoid getting too gross, I'll skip some of the side effects. But the short version is that last week we were wondering if the new smell when he coughs and what he's been spitting up had something to do with the tumor changing. (We didn't know if this was changing for better or worse, and when we felt hopeful, we also thought we might be grasping at straws.) Last weekend we were both feeling pretty discouraged. Dave seemed to be doing really poorly. (Hot and cold flashes, bad headaches, nausea, vomiting - and the tumor smelling.) Dave's mom texted me to remind me not to pay attention to the wind and waves or I'd sink, which was very good advice. Monday was a little better and a friend called and asked if we'd go to the healing service at Northpark that night. Dave was feeling well, but still hesitant, especially after feeling so bad from a short trip to a nearby Chapters over the weekend. (I was afraid he was going to pass out and I might need to ask for help to get him back to the car.) Anyway, we decided at the last minute to go to Northpark. It was a good evening and we were there for a few hours and Dave did fine. One woman praying with us, started praying that every time that Dave coughed or spit, he would be spitting out the tumor. (This is what we've been praying for - pretty much every day. How could she really be familiar with this?) On Monday evening Dave woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.

Some of you may be wondering why we wouldn't ask our oncologist about this - the bad side effects and the smell. If you recall - the chemo failed halfway through, and we declined radiation because the little benefit it might offer wasn't worth the very serious side effects of radiating around vital organs. (Again, they remind us that they can't cure this - the purpose of chemo & radiation was just try to shrink the tumor and gain a few months. Also the 2nd opinion radiation oncologist we met with at Princess Margaret Hospital told us that if Dave were his  brother, he wouldn't do radiation. He said to stay as healthy as he can for as long as he can.) The week after our appointment with the radiation oncologist, I called the cancer clinic to ask which doctor we should contact with any concerns. The next day they called back to tell us to contact our family doctor if we need medical attention. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, as I would think that an oncologist would be better able to deal and treat the symptoms of cancer than a GP. But the reality is that if you're not seeing the Medical Oncologist for chemotherapy, or the Radiation Oncologist for radiation treatment - they have nothing else to offer. Not surprisingly it doesn't really bother us - as they're just a constant reminder that Dave's cancer is incurable. They're depressing and a big part of surviving something like this is optimism. Yesterday, we went to see our GP just to check-in. It's a little less stressful than the cancer clinic. We asked him some questions, about what Dave was going through, but he didn't really know. He said he would just just treat symptoms as they came up.

Back to the positive stuff, on Tuesday I came across some information regarding 'lysing', or 'tumor lysis'. "DETOXIFICATION

This process of the cancer cells breaking down is called "lysing," which is a detoxification process. Some people have fully recovered from their cancer with no outward signs of detoxing at all. People with a lot of cancer or fast-growing cancer will often see mucous like material in their feces and/or urine, or experience a runny nose or crusty eyes in the morning. Sometimes, people will even cough or vomit up mucous like whitish stuff. If any of this happens, it can generally be taken as a good sign that dead cancer cell parts are being ejected out of the body." Dave has been experiencing all of these symptoms for almost 2 weeks now.

I did some more digging and came across a page that described in-depth the side effects of lysing that almost ENTIRELY describe what Dave's been experiencing recently. We had been so discouraged lately, that we'd been praying and begging for something positive to encourage us. After reading this new info, we're were cautiously optimistic that the main tumor might be breaking up. Then late Tuesday evening I came across more encouraging information. I had purchased a book online that arrived Tuesday. ('The Gerson Therapy' - it's an alternative cancer therapy that is very similar to what Dave's doing, but they allow different foods etc...) We went to bed, I prayed for Dave, and then opened the book. And I kid you not, but the VERY FIRST PAGE I opened to was about a 46 year old man giving his survival story. He had cancer of the esophagus and larynx and was given a poor prognosis. He read one of the Gerson books twice, and then decided to do it as he had nothing to lose. He said that after 1 1/2 months, he could tell the tumor was dying as the smell was vile. He said that it was an awful time for him as well. Then he went on to say that after few months had passed, he was walking into a hardware store, and felt the tumor flutter and vibrate and then fall away. He swallowed it without thinking, but then collapsed in a panic. He doesn't remember how but he drove the 20 minutes home, and realized what had happened. In hindsight he said that he should have tried to vomit it up but wasn't thinking clearly. He said that he was violently ill for a week as his body absorbed and then got rid of the toxins from the tumor.

You may not understand how encouraging this is to us, but up until then, I have been unable to find any personal stories of people overcoming Esophageal Cancer. I apologize for how gross this post is, but in order to share what's going on, there was no avoiding it. (And actually, I could go more in depth with other side effects which really seems to make us think this is the tumor starting to break down, but it's a little too gross.) It might be the fact that we're feeling more positive, but Dave seems to be feeling a little better this week. We realize that this is just the beginning, and Dave has a huge uphill battle ahead of him, but we are not giving up. We will prove the doctors wrong.

I have stolen the name of this post from another woman's site. She overcame a very bad terminal cancer in 1990 using an alternative therapy as well. It is very encouraging and "Prisoners of Hope" does aptly describe how we feel.

Although we're by no means out of the woods, this has really encouraged us. The true test will be when Dave is able to swallow liquids again. So for those of you that are of the faith, please continue to pray that the main tumor will just break down, and that the cancer that spread to his lymph nodes and liver would just disappear. Cancer disappearing and healthy cells regrowing has happened before, and we're praying that it will happen again.

God bless!

Val