In March 2010, I was diagnosed with Stage IIIB Liver Cancer and given six months to live…

Hi everyone, just to let you know that I'm gone this afternoon, Mmmkay! Hunt - July 6, 2011 @ 2:55 p.m.

Monday, May 30, 2011

#33 When It's Sleepy Time Out West

Up north, down south, out west, and back east. Sleepyawn time REMgone down out for the count little Susie take me down.
I just can't seem to keep my eyes open so this weeks blog is hereby postponed. I will catch you all up in June, my birthday month.

Until then...

Monday, May 23, 2011

#32 If It's Not Working-Fix It

Didn't quite get to posting yesterday but soon will. Hopefully within the next day or two.

And I'm back, Tuesday the 24th of May, 5am.

Sad to say, as much as I like and respect Dr. Kunin, I must give his regime of vitamins, infusions, etc... the boot. My main reason for this being the blood test I had last week, after over three months of being Kuninized, were my worst numbers ever. Plus the weekly trek to SF and back had become very draining. Kunin's method had ceased making me feel better until I stopped. Similar to the Burzynski protocol, these guys have some tried and true success rates, but they fall way short when it comes to liver cancer. Like everyone else. Moving on.

In retrospect the first course of action we should have researched is acupuncture COMBINED with the Chinese herb and fungi tinctures. But at that time I didn't have the proper acupuncturist nor mindset. Apparently neither did my first two needlers as both never mentioned herbs. And along comes Christy.  When the student is ready...and all that jazz. I started on the tincture last week, gradually increasing to the full dose as of Sunday the 22nd. I've heard many times how bad these herbs can smell and taste, and maybe some do, but I would describe the taste as potent, in fact, very potent. The smell, because one has to simmer off the alcohol, is very mild and it only takes eight minutes to complete. I make enough just for the day. Along with the herbal and fungi tincture, she's got me on Cordyceps. 

There have been no negative effects so far and I do feel a bit better since I started the Mahoney method. Conversely of both Burzynski's protocol, and Kunin's composite, the Christy combo does NOT feel like it's making my liver work any harder. That's a good thing.


The tumor pain is not so bad this past week and I have been able to steer clear of the Jungle Juice. Mostly, how I feel lately has been uncomfortable rather than painful, largely due to the water retention (edema) in my belly, my feet, and legs, in tandem with the ever present constipation blues. Dr. Clark (Kaiser oncologist) put me on Lasix and Spironolactone, two diuretics. We shall see...


I'd really like to be able to be one of those people who are grateful for each day, especially under the circumstances, being thankful should come easy. Instead I just consider myself a lucky stiff; and I will settle for that.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

#31 Tomorrow…

This has been one of those weeks where every day, up until yesterday, the best I could do was hope for tomorrow and that I would feel better, especially at night. But the next day was more or less the same. At least today I don’t feel like chucking myself out of the window. I’ll take that as progress.
I guess the real frustrating stuff besides my pain level, for which I had to resort to the jungle juice more than a few times, is the malaise and the falling asleep. Today the pain level is considerably better, but since sitting down to write the blog (just up from a nap) I’ve fallen asleep about five times, and it’s taken me forty-two minutes to get this far! Gosh, I bore myself to sleep.
                                
The numbers, the numbers that tell me about my well and unwell being. They are the dictating digits of my demeanor, the crap count, and finally the fettle figures. I’m talking about my blood-work. Neither well nor fine fettle does this data decry. And Ha and I are pissed-off! It was yet another costly block of time, with my liver working overtime on processing all the supplements, only to have the worst set of numbers yet. When Dr. Kunin said I’d feel better he didn’t say for how long, but I know now, almost three months. We are done with Kunin. In all fairness the first two months were good. So now what?
I mentioned the Chinese herbal tinctures from Christy last week; well the first batch has been ordered and will arrive this week. We figure it’s time to break away from all this cutting edge, experimental and contemporary methods and go with something that’s been around for thousands of years and has a pretty good track record. Besides there ain’t much else on the horizon as far as this stuff goes. Not to say it is a last resort, I’m just surprised it’s taken me this long to try something that I’ve believed in (acupuncture, Qi Gong) for so long.
Write a sentence, take a Siesta, sentence, Siesta. No pun intended but I’m getting tired of all this dozing. I’m just gonna put in some pictures of my garden on the deck. Maybe I’ll write some more later or during the week.


A Blue Wildflower

Brussels & Radishes

Planted 3 Cantaloupe seeds & 3 Sprouted!

Tomato Patch

Succulent Corner

Sunday, May 8, 2011

#30 The Night Was Sultry

That’s where I’m at now. After staring at a blank screen for a while, falling asleep twice, watching a couple of clips from “Throw Momma From The Train” on Youtube, making some tea (also in the beginning clip of the movie) and, my favorite procrastinatory, staring out the window and watching the Carquinez Straits roll choppily on by (yes, that’s a word, unlike the one further back in the sentence.)  Ahh well with the way I feel I can’t blame my muse for taking a midnight flight out of Shitsville, or should I say the County of Constipation.

I never know until I get in there and the meat hits the seat.  I do bring the Jungle Juice with me nonetheless, because the most painful of times have been in that little room, and I have thought, more than once, don’t let me die on the crapper.  There are a number of ways shit happens, I’ll leave that there, but I haven’t had a normal, pain free, bowel movement since before my diagnosis.  OK, enough of that shit.

Mumsy’s birthday was a blast!  She brought Grandpa Ray with her, one of our favorites of Mum’s friends.  He’s been asking her to marry him for a long time now, but at seventy-eight, being “in love” still matters to her.  But Ha and I love Ray and will always root for him; at the same time we both want Mom to be as happy as she can be.  Raymundo Cassani has some truly great stories that we love listening to; he’s quite gestural in the telling of them, animated even, but often times he doesn’t have his hearing aid volume up enough and let’s just say in those times they can be a bit off topic.  But we find that kind of funny in a charming way.   Ray's Birthday was just a few days away so we got him a hat. For Mum’s birthday Ray bought her a very nice stainless steel microwave, so Ha and I got her all the “microwave safe” cooking accoutrements we could find.  Everything from a rice maker to an egg poacher…she was happy.  Then I made a fancy salad with pears and radicchio, candied nuts, and some crumbly cheese.  The main course?  Pizza pie!  Homemade dough and sauce with spicy sausage.  Desert was chocolate on chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting, Mumsy’s 78th, which would have said 79th but she corrected me in an email a couple of days before.  Nice night!


Mum spent the night and the next day met us at the VA for my appointments with my primary care, Dr. Drye, and oncologist, Dr. Katie Kelly. I had my blood-work done earlier so Dr. Drye had already looked at those numbers, which were not so hot (bilirubin@11) but quite representative of the way I had been feeling as of late.  I’m learning that she, Dr. Drye, tends to be a bit cut and dry.  No harm intended but we felt a bit worse when we left her office than when we entered.  On the other end of the spectrum is Dr. Kelley, who knows my status better than anyone yet she was quite positive about the blood test numbers.  Asking us how all the alternative treatments were going and was I still walking every day, yes.  We left feeling renewed and like we had a partner who would and had gladly fought for me as far as she could in the world of Western medicine.  Kudos Katie!

I have started the Artemisinin and will start the Chinese herbs next week, which we are intuitively psyched about. Hopefully the Artemisinin won’t negatively affect my liver, and I’ll be able to continue with it and add the Chinese herbs.  That’s why I started the pills a week before, so if there are any bad side effects I’ll know exactly what it’s from.  The Chinese herbs will come in tincture form and are pretty costly, especially when I gradually get to the maximum doses.  It runs about $1,200 bucks a month, so keep those donations coming.  We are truly grateful for all the help we’ve gotten so far.

Acupuncture was pretty intense again this week.  Christy is absolutely amazing, and the fact that I sleep quite a bit after the sessions is good because, to me, it means something is being or trying to be healed and I need to rest so that can happen.

OK for now.


Sunday, May 1, 2011

#29 Back on the Blog

I’m rewired sans malware/virus and grateful to have The tool back again.  I’d be more thankful if I didn’t have to run Vista as the OS, and even happier if I could just switch to Mac, but it’s OK for now.  All my programs and peripherals are back, I didn’t really lose anything important, like my writing, music, biz files, etc…but all my bookmarks are gone, oh well.  Onward.

On the up-side Ha survived the first round of cuts at work, whew!  So for the time being we’re ok.  We are unsure what the future holds with her city job, and only time will tell.  And our deck-garden is coming along.  I decided to keep everything upstairs this year rather than deal with rodentia, dog feces, and rickety wooden stairs.  So far we’ve got green onions, radishes, cilantro, cantaloupe, San Marzano tomatoes, and Brussels sprouts, the most delicious of the gemmifera group.  August should be a tasty month!

This Tuesday is Mumsy’s birthday and if I have the energy she wants to spend a couple of days with us.  Spending the night Tuesday, complete with Chinese dinner, and going with us to my oncologist, Dr. Katie, on Wednesday.  I’m happy, but what a thing to do on your 79th birthday …only a mother.

I don’t much feel like writing about the down side because the past couple of weeks, with this last week being worse, have been real crappy.  Poor sleep, fatigue, constipation, malaise, fear, gastro-intestinal pain, tumor pain, blog, blog, blog.  On and on I could go, but having to suffer through it is quite enough, I don’t need to have a report at hand too.  If I have more to say I'll say it here, on the blog, if I feel up to it, not in conversation.  In fact, unless it’s my doctor or wife there’s absolutely no reason to get into how I’m feeling.  “Not so good” is a complete answer, and any further questioning, discussion, or explanation only serves to drive me deeper into depression and anger.

Along with Dr. Kunin’s new regime of Artemisinin, I will be starting on some Chinese herbs from my acupuncturist, Christy, which Ha and I are very excited about.  More to come about that next week, along with new blood-work from Dr. Katie at the VA, and her report on my current state.