Hi All,
Wristtwister has been telling me about all the support but I just haven’t had the energy to come see for myself – it is truly nice to see. It’s humbling to find out how supportive people can really be. I’m learning new things about people through all this, things that I never learned with the family – Thank you all!!!!
On the TCM vs Traditional Western Medicine note – those that conversed with me on this board in the past should remember I was never one to hide from a good debate
Some thing to think about RE: TCM – for the last 5,000 years it has supported a major population – NON STOP. I would challenge anyone to find another form of medicine that can boast the same life span. Even when the communist took over and attempted to convert China to western style medicine it just went under ground; so saying use things that are “tested” is really up for interpretation.
Where the problems come in is similar to MA, most of the explanations can be rather deep and at best “magical” sounding. So true masters of the craft are hard to understand; this unfortunately makes it easy to scam people - think Dillman
A bit about my X wife – She studied and was later offered a teaching position at the largest TCM School in China. After 5 years she moved to Sweden to teach and practice TCM - she was the chair of the acupuncture department for the largest alternative medical clinic in Europe at the time. During her time there she published a book on TCM, received her MD, and traveled Europe giving TCM lecture. After that she moved to the US. I was introduced to her shortly after she arrived here - she was teaching Anatomy at the school that founded Chiropractic, as well as working on her Masters. She quit teaching and put the Masters on hold so she could accept a full scholarship for her DC (Doctor of Chiropractic). After that She completed her masters then turned Harvard down for Her PHD - she said she was sick of school. She has full TCM, Western Medicine, and Chiropractic Educations if she tells you its broke its broke, if she says she can fix it, you will get better.
My take on Chemo – I was on Chemo from June to December, every two weeks, 51 hours from start to finish. Imagine in every aspect you can think of, checking out of your life every other week - IT SUCKS!!!! Then there is the laundry list of side effects – but don’t worry we have a pill for that too. And that is how it begins; the snowball effect of medication. One of the cooler side effects was an extreme sensitivity to cold. Anything that touches cold instantly feels like it’s asleep to the point it hurts. I live in the Midwest – 3 hours west of Chicago - the cold air was too much to deal with in September. The truly fun part is that all the side effects are cumulative, so the longer you take it the worse they get so that “every other week” thing starts to blur and soon it spills into the next week and eventually you look like walking dead.
My situation – I started spending time with My X and the kids in September. In September My doctor started scratching his head when he would look at my papers and started calling me the all-mighty-one. I kept up with the Chemo and started noticing that the only time I really felt bad was during western treatment, I decided to pull the plug on it in December – I was unplugged from my last chemo treatment the day before thanksgiving. My Doctor freaked out when I told him I was done; when I told him he got p!ssed to the point he stormed out of the office. Within the next two months he was grilling me on what I was “taking” and asked to meet with her. He said “I have people that cant take Intravenous Chemotherapy and I would love to be able to help them in another way”. If you where to take a look at my CEA numbers it starts to make sense as to why he was so baffled in September - it dropped from 9700 to 6500 and continued to fall to a low of 1100 (normal range is 0-3). As Grady said I managed to develop an infection at an old wound site after doing “too much” and have been backsliding ever since – my body is just too weak to build back. It’s odd the best way I can describe how I feel now is similar to a day that if the wind wasn’t blowing it would be nice – well if I wasn’t in so damn much pain all the time I would feel good. I had a conversation with the Doc the day before Valentines Day (he has a way of screwing up holidays) and he said that without Chemo I’m looking at 6mo – 1yr, with Chemo possibly double. It was at this time I found out that I had a 9cm tumor in my liver – it’s now gained 1-2cm (there are others in my liver and they too got bigger but the big one is the one they are watching). Well the only time I feel really good is after time with my X. I sleep better, I can eat, and what ever hurts at the time feels better. This is 180 degrees off of the western medicine effects, I can’t sleep, food taste horrible, and this list goes on and gets nasty so I’ll stop here.
Basically, my position is this. I’m comfortable with the alternative side of things. In an odd way the magical explanations make sense to me. I see the offer of doubling my life with Chemo the same as saying – well you don’t feel too bad now, you can still function even if it hurts, if you go back on chemo I can take all that away and make you suffer for the next two years. Personally, I’ll take the chance that I can live better in a short time than I could suffering chemo. I’m just fortunate that I have the resources available to me that I have.
Thanks again for all the support, I’m happy that I took the time to come see what was going on - Ill stop by as energy permits.
-JBC-
Jon
