CANCER
The C-word, the one word that strikes the fear of God in our souls.
One in every three Americans will fight it. How many win the fight? How many succumb to the assault on their life at the cellular level? How many survivors do TED talks telling us how they pictured their immune systems working at the molecular level to heal: Body, Heal Thyself! And it works; their tumors shrink. They walk again, run marathons, win bicycle races (Lance Armstrong).
Abundance.Tribe's BiWeekly Question - What Has Been The Most Valuable Lesson, You Have Learnt In Life?
EAT MORE FRUIT
The time to fight cancer is before you GET cancer. Eat all those tropical berries, mangoes, mangosteens, apricot seed juices, pomegranates, cherries, whatever it is they advertise as alternatives to chemo.
My sister Kelly, a marathon runner, "never took a pill" and never got the flu shot and never got sick. Now she is taking her 100 unused sick days (and will need more) to undergo chemotherapy for Stage 4 Stomach Cancer + Lymphoma (it has spread into her lymph nodes and organs). Due to Covid restrictions on routine or "elective" procedures and tests, and above all due to four different doctors failing to test her fo cancer, she is now in the most advanced and difficult stage. My sister, the healthiest one of us five, the most energetic, accomplished, and ambitious, now losing so much weight her clothes are falling off. Her long, wild mae of hair has been pixie-cut.
I've written a lot here about sister Lori, #2 of the 5, but Sisters #3 and #5 are intensely private and distrustful of social media, but I will say Kelly's first name now, at last, at least.
MY SISTER KELLY
aka "Fraulein Sauerkraut" because her students said her long, wavy hair looked like sauerkraut, and Fraulein, because even as a grandma, she continued to identify as a "Miss" or maiden, not a "Frau" or mature woman.
#frauleinsauerkraut • • what you should really be doing on Saturday night at 8pm • •
#jumprope #jumpingrope #100skips #frausauerkraut #frauleinsauerkraut #germany #exercise #easter2019 #expertskipper #didntmissaskip #skippingrope #jumpropequeen #jumpropedemo
#frauleinsauerkraut
60 and Stronger than ever. Quarantined or not, there is no excuse to forgo your workout. Im keeping stronger in my #strongersweden sportswear. @stronger
#fitfam #fitness #weightlifting #weightlifter #bikinibody #seniorcitizen #fitatsixty #elderlyfitfam #homeworkout #quarantineworkouts
The most vibrant, ebullient, hard-working, resilient, and strong of middle-aged women, she who could do chin-up, push-ups and pull-ups, who would run eight miles a day, all year round - she who turns 62 this month - a grandma now who still identifies as a teenager -
HOW CAN THIS BE
It's one thing to watch each other age, over the years. We all lose our youthful looks as gravity and gray hair take over. But to watch two sisters do aging in Fast Forward mode, to see them go skinny, frail, weak, and gray in just a matter of months, not years, not decades - it is more than our mother can bear.
photos poached from my sisters' private albums
Last visit Kelly had with Lori, June 2021;
unbeknownst to us, Kelly was already Stage 4
On hearing the news,
our mom at 84 wanted to go outside and "howl" when Kelly phoned her the news. Instead she cut the phone call short and headed off to church as planned. "Sorry I'm late," she said. "I just got the most awful news." But, instead of getting words of sympathy and such, she got murmurs and Back to Business As Usual and no emotional support from the church ladies.
Mom, you need to find a different church.
Now our techno-challenged mother has learned how to call up songs on You-Tube, link them to Facebook, and tag Kelly with little messages of hope. Starting with "Rise" by Herb Alpert.
More than one person asked me if I were posting these for Grandma. Nope!
I used to post daily songs for sister Lori, but for Kelly, I figured I couldn't top Roger Daltry in the rock opera Tommy. Turns out she OWNS THE VIDEO of this movie, and I never knew. (Her favorite scene was the Beans fit for a Queen commercial with Ann Margaret.)
Right behind you I see the millions
On you I see the glory
See me, feel me
Touch me, #heal me
Listening to you I get the music
Gazing at you I get the heat
Following you I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet
Never mind how 1970s this looks and sounds. The soaring music, the energy, the triumph as "Tommy" is healed - this is the spirit, the power, the restoration to good health that I'm beaming to you, Kelly!
Why did I not know my sister loved this movie enough to own it....
#LifeLesson #2: Know Your Siblings
She had more than the hair in common with "Tommy"
To see her pole-walking (skipping!) and hiking in the mountains she so loves and looks so "at home" in, here is the link:
Back to Grandma, techno-savvy for Kelly
This one cracked me up: our mom, calling up rainbows!
It also tells me how despairing she must feel....
Flute song for Kelly as she played flute, likes Jethrow Tull, has "roved" a lot and the video has rainbows, a sign of hope
"We Are Family" - I got all my sisters and me
"A song for Kelly. Hope you will feel stronger every day."
She sustained the positivity for a few days, but today, that note of sadness struck:
wishing you were near to be with you now
What have I learned.....
EAT YOUR DANG FRUITS AND VEGGIES
Eat less of the brats, sausages, bacon, and bread and pasta
Kelly's diet has been devoid of fruit, but she does chop a cabbage in half and skillet- fry it with sausage.
She eats creamed spinach, and broccoli with cheese.
Pasta - Kelly is the queen of bread and pasta.
Now, having suffered the nausea, fatigue, aches, and pains of Round One of chemo, which will be twice a month for six months, Kelly is frantically trying to swallow her antioxidant, healing superfruits (the tumor interferes with that) - the apricot seed juice, the mangosteen -
Sheer will power can work miracles.
NOTE: Mayo Clinic studies confirm that fasting for at least 24 hours (water only!) before chemo can alleviate the nausea, but Kelly's doctor in Germany says "You can't risk losing more weight." She's losing weight anyway, and it's only 1-2 days of fasting, and if it helps stave off the nausea, I'd ignore the doctors. It was four or more doctors, after all, who told her to take Tums, then take pain killers, but after months of painkillers and still not able to swallow (hello, BARIUM SWALLOW TEST, back in June, I advised that, yet the dang doctor didn't do it because #LifeLesson #3, NEVER TRUST YOUR DOCTORS).....
#LifeLesson #4: Advocate for yourself; doctors do not always know more than you do.
I mean, yes, for the most part, the have to; they know more; but do they know YOU?
HOW WELL DOES YOUR DOCTOR KNOW YOUR BODY, your "normal" -
In 1995, two doctors in one week insisted I didn't have pneumonia. I should have insisted they were mistaken and demanded to be taken seriously. Instead, I lay inert on a sofa while five months pregnant, for three miserable weeks in August, with two toddlers at home, line-drying cloth diapers in the hot sun... night sweats, fevers, that awful cough..... DO NOT LET DOCTORS TELL YOU THEY KNOW BETTER THAN YOU DO what ails you!
How many more life lessons could I cram into one post....?
Well, I still haven't accessed my wallet (how many months has it been), so count me out of any HBD awards until I resolve that techno-hurdle. @Raj 808, I did save my passwords on a paper copy, in a safe, and have yet to dig them out, but I fear the passwords SOMEHOW GOT ALTERED by mistake (hit a wrong button) and not saved.... but my mind just isn't on Hive wallets right now.
All my attention is consumed by this mission to ignore the statistics ("No Stage 4 stomach cancer patient has lasted even five years") -- never mind all the usual hopeless, daunting, demoralizing NUMBERS and stuff. My mind, my heart, my spirit, are all caught up in one mission now: for Kelly to call up a miracle, triumph over the "Worst Possible Diagnosis," and run marathons again, telling the greatest success story she's ever told yet (and she has so many, she didn't need another one.) :)
Kelly, I love you, and I am act *actively wishing you well, in the most transitive sense of that verb "to wish."
Thank you Abundance.Tribe and founder @kennyskitchen for reading this.
Anyone with "We Beat the Odds!" success stories, feel free to share your triumph!