I'M THE ONE IN CHARGE ---WHO KNEW?

I just learned a valuable lesson that everyone has been telling me, but I never "believed them" or truly understood until now. And that is, I'm the boss, I'm in charge when it comes to my cancer treatments. 

I went to see my oncologist last week, expecting to receive a death sentence. As you all know, I’m refusing to do more chemo. Which to most of us means “death sentence.” You’ve only got a few months, weeks, days to live, etc. So, I went there expecting that, thinking they’d give me a few months anyway. I felt strong though, so I didn’t need my husband by my side, and I simply brought a friend. Poor thing. I’m sure she was wondering if she’d need to offer a shoulder for me to cry on, or considering how “passionate” I can get at times, possibly a sounding board that gets pounded on. Who knows? All I know is my precious friend and sister in Christ (all her jitters completely contained) accompanied me that day, not knowing what to expect. Talk about someone I can depend on. It’s so easy to love those kinds of people, isn’t it?

Anyway, I went, and I was armed. You see, I made several copies about B17 from two pages of the book WORLD WITHOUT CANCER along with a note from me to other cancer patients, explaining to them what B17 did for me and could also do for them. I found that patients were very open to receiving this information. On the page, I pasted (literally pasted) a copy of the link to the VIDEO DOCUMENTARY I’ve been harping on everyone to watch as well. I told the secretary at the hospital what I was doing, and she was saying that they were all going to lose their jobs, and don’t tell the nurses because they surely won’t like it. I figured, what’s a lost job compared to a saved life? I know I was risking getting kicked out of the hospital, but I didn’t care. I was desperate to tell those that needed it most!

Back to my onc (oncologist). The NP (nurse practitioner, who I see before my onc) asked what I wanted to do from here on out, since they found more tumors, etc. I told her I wasn’t going to do the biopsy because I wasn’t going to do chemo, so there was no point in doing the biopsy. My onc later asked, “Don’t you want to know what it is?” I said, “I don’t care what it is.” I could tell he was simply curious (you know, it’s that scientific mind at work), but what he seems to forget is the fact that I have four children here at home NEEDING their mother. Why make it so they have to take care of me when it’s not necessary?

In answer to the NPs question, I handed her a copy of the paper I’d been passing out to all the cancer patients and said I was “doing B17.” She said (the onc was not yet present) that it was good, that it’d be good to do some natural treatments along with what they do. I said, “Really?!” completely dumfounded because I was so used to being made fun of for looking outside the box.

My biggest question, however, was how my liver counts were doing because I’d been off their tac (the immune suppressant drug) for over a month and a half. See . . . the “graft vs. host disease” (GVHD--when the new stem cells attack me) all started with my liver. Shortly after the stem cell transplant last year (over a YEAR AGO, can you believe it?) my liver counts went up (we’d asked my onc and nurses if my liver was acting up because of all the meds, and they said it was very possible, but they couldn’t take any chances) and because my onc feared it was the GVHD, he treated my symptoms as such (and in came the prednisone, overdose of the tac, etc). The tac is what kept GVHD under control. So my biggest concern going there was to find out how my liver counts were doing because I’d been off the tac for so long. If I got GVHD, then my case was hopeless, and a death sentence might have been in order.  But when I asked, the NP said, “Great! They’re doing really good!” Really? Really! WHOOO, HOOO! That meant, the new stem cells were NOT attacking me! YAY!

BTW, when she asked what meds I was still on, I told her I was on NOTHING. I got off the tac on my own (to my onc’s horror) and ALL the antibiotics two weeks before I came in (my naturopath doc here ran some tests and told me my immune system was working a lot better, so I got off those as well). 

Anyway, when my onc arrived on the scene, I found out he was leaving and would no longer be my onc. I had to thank him and hug him, because in all honesty, I wouldn’t be here today had it not been for him. It took going through all this to discover what we now know about cancer treatments, and because I didn’t know it in the beginning, I wouldn’t have lasted this long. Anyway, he was leaving to work in Chicago to develop a new drug for cancer. So, naturally I asked, “Have you ever heard of B17?” Immediately, he puffed up his chest and chuckled proudly, “Of course! Of course, I have!” all smiles. And that’s all he said. You see, normally if my onc thought something was quackery, he would come right out and say it. The weird and interesting thing about this was, he didn’t say anything more at all.  Also, had he said something positive about it, he could lose his job. So, there he stood in silence, and there I waited in silence. Don’t remember what broke the silence, but it was probably him jumping to another subject. Another interesting thing to note is that when I mentioned that I was “doing B17,” the NP was in complete support of “alternative treatments.” But when my hubby (who was on the phone btw) asked about some “proton” treatment in OK, she sounded all the warning bells about not spending our money and going bankrupt, etc, to some unknown doc doing some strange treatment. Hmm. All warnings and signals flared with that, but NOT when I said I was taking B17. But don’t we all know that B17 is illegal to prescribe here in the “land of the free” because it’s “so dangerous?” Crazy how we have to play this stupid game all because the government has illegalized a TRUE CANCER KILLER! Hmm. I wonder if we could sue the government for taking so many lives? Interesting thought. I’ll come back to that in another post (maybe). 

I finally asked my onc the most important question. “Since I’ve been off the tac for over a month, do you think the new stem cells will finally kill this cancer?” His immediate answer was, “Yes. Yes, I do.”

So, I walked away with a little more hope. I say “a little more” because in all honesty, I already had hope before I walked in that door. I just didn’t know how much I was going to have to defend my own “treatments” of B17, and what kind of battleground I’d entered. Turns out, they are happy to monitor me and see how I do while on this wonderful, God-made supplement called B17.

All I can say now is Thank You God. Thank You for Your wonderful gift of apricot seeds. xxx