Self Discovery

Things feel different. It's hard to explain.

I've lived my life over again in the past few days, in a different body, through different eyes.

I know myself much better.

I'm happy. I'm confident. My purpose is growing.

These last few days of this cycle are getting harder. I think doing full out Ondansetron has been a challenge for my digestive system. I'm hoping that a week of serious maintenance and upkeep on the equipment will be able to bring it back up to optimum performance in time for the next assault. I think tonight though I'm going to try switching back to just Zantac instead of Ondansetron. My last vomit incident was on a night I felt I moderately mismanaged my dosage prep eating, as I felt slightly full still when taking them. I switched to Ondansetron for safety to avoid triggering a pattern of vomiting, then ran this cycle on Ondansetron to see what effects would be on digestive system. My concern was I would not continue to expel waste appropriately leaving a higher chance of residual absorption of the Temozolomide in inappropriate context. Dietary changes did manage to keep the cleanup systems going, but I do feel it has had an effect on my digestive system nonetheless. The level of progression in mild nausea/discomfort has been not a linear progression as it was showing on all previous cycles. Hypothesis for explaining that is the Ondansetron blocking acid/killing bacteria is reducing absorption speed/power of digestive system, contributing to absorption of Temozolomide to higher levels. Reason for testing tonight is last night of the cycle means I can break pattern and won't set psychological reaction of vomit if I do trigger without the surgical anti-nauseant. My concern approaching this is that my shift of dietary input (by subjective evidence seems to have) reduced mucus production through esophagus/bowels and raised PH of stomach, therefore if I've changed the conditions of the environment I'm taking the drug into I'm not isolating the variable to identify cause as the change of anti-nauseant to explain change in effect of chemotherapy. I'll track the info.

It fascinates me how much I've changed. One thing that remains a central area of focus is maintaining the balance between confidence and arrogance. I feel like I've learned a ton, so I get excited, I want to share this positive energy I've taken in. When I try to put it together in my head well enough to put it out there and explain everything that's going on I feel like I'm just being some arrogant turd. Part of it too is I'm definitely having arrogant turd moments. I'll have a moment of insight, in it empathize and feel connection to some significant world-changing person, and then some times I have a moment where I feel like "oh yeah it's hard to be so wise" or some other shit. I find that pretty annoying in myself, I'll realize I've done something good for once and then decide for a second I'm Superman. Not to say I don't deserve a good deal of confidence and self assuredness on my accomplishments, effort, and the potential within me. Just if I start thinking I'm actually better than other people is when I feel like it gets wrong. I've got some evidence which seems to suggest I'm "better", statistical representations of particular forms and/or representations of performance/quality/??? wherein I have record of competing very strongly/exceptionally. The trick is, I think, that when I'm getting onto the point where I actually let myself go arrogant wad for a bit is that I'm focusing on a selective set of priorities that emphasizes my strengths and not my weaknesses. It seems like finding a balance is clutch. Some parts of your life need more emphasis on the high points, some maybe it's time to remind yourself of the low. The underlying key for me has been trying to find a way to hold to myself that no matter what is showing on the outside the fundamental being on the inside is on the same level as me and deserves as much respect as I do. If it doesn't come naturally out of me to look at it that way then I have filters on my vision and I need to learn to look differently.

Letting myself believe  this was also a huge release for me. I rejected religion viciously when very young, and all belief alongside it. I clung to the rational structure of life desperately. I think I thought I was learning more watching Bill Nye and Magic School Bus than I was in the religious school I was sent to, where they told me silly stories I couldn't possibly be expected to believe. I also had some bad times and experiences there, I was a troublesome little lad with a bit more energy and ...whatever it was, than your average student. In my time there I had some experiences which led me to viciously reject authority and belief. For around 18 years of my life if it couldn't be brought fully into the rational structure to the point where it could be objectively verified and I could say I know  it it was not a part of my life. While I hold to the value for me, as the kind of intense person I am, to reject religion completely (I think if I'd gotten into it I'd have gone zealot at least for a while...eeehh...) it seems like an unnecessarily large step for even an agnostic to reject believing in anything beyond the quantifiable, objective terms of expressing reality. When scientists specialize and chase their studies either down the tunnel into the deep darkness or up the mountain to the peak, they find an end of the verifiable truth that often leads them to transcendental conclusions. My best interpretation and analogy of this truth is actually fairly succinct.

We used to try and look at the Universe using algebra, one variable, and that didn't work. Now, we're looking at calculus. It's still limited. The new problem, the new variable, and the unanswerable one is both simple and complex: the number of variables. Quantum physics identified the inability to synchronously identify location and vector of subatomic particles, that was the fact that seeded this idea in me. As I learned more about it, I found it seemed to mean less than I thought, and the tunnel grew. I don't think this is the final answer, but it works pretty damn well for me.

If we accept that, it is easy to see that we're trying to answer an infinite question with a finite representation. Accepting that allowed me to open myself up to things which didn't have to align perfectly with the rational structures of my right brain. I still test them and am careful with their use and value but I feel very strongly I've seen value in them. As I let them in on hope and trust I test them as best I can against more verifiable points of reference. I've opened myself up to thinking of my history and where I come from more freely, taking it as having deeper meaning to who I am than I'd accepted before. I've found it resonates very well with my own introspective review of my life. I see who I am more by looking at where I come from, I understand drives and desires and needs within myself. Allowing in thoughts like positive energy coming my way, and just the open minded concept that there is more there than I understand, and it's trying to help me realize my purpose, because my purpose is in its interest, so if I open myself to it, it can help me. I can definitely see going through this shift of experience how some people have reckoned the experience of rebirth with discovering religion. It's a phenomenon through different religions and cultures. My hypothesis is what happens in those events is people are given through one method or another a shift in perspective and resulting gain which they then attribute credit to for all their happiness and peace, because they don't understand fully what's going on within themselves, and it's easier to attribute it to a definable source of outside help. By rejecting religion and belief (as best I could) I forced myself to come to this point of wisdom on my own terms. That's not to say there's been no outside influence or help!! There has been a ton. Far, far more than I know even, and I know a whole hell of a lot too. Just that they've been mostly helping me stubbornly blaze my own path, rather than leading me down one that has already been set.

The other avenue which this has opened which is contributing to my belief in it is meditation. The sensation, experience, clarity of thought, and undefinable gain I experience from meditation is FREAKIN SWEET. My best interpretation of it is that it seems to be enabling a freer flow of energy through, into, and/or out of my body. I feel as though it can form a bond between the conscious and subconscious operating processes of the mind, allowing in that negative space free of thought a synthesis between the insight of the two, and for them to reckon each other and come to terms. It seems as though this reconciliation allows your body to freely investigate and invigorate itself. I've mostly so far explored meditation on my own, having gone mostly by feel to find what works. My focus has been on bodily symmetry, breathing, and clarity of mind. Another excellent enabling agent has been finding body engaging postures which place mild emphasis/stress on areas experiencing tension, as meditation focus can seem to enable freer flow of energy or even blood to these areas in those times. I've adapted meditation to an old childhood habit as well. For much of my growing life I was very hyperactive, and would impulsively engage in random activities at almost any time. I'm similar now, where just on impulse when I feel a few spare moments I will often turn my focus inward and then clear it and engage in a brief moment of meditation. Sometimes I let myself draw energy from the earth through my feet and let myself feel it flowing through my body for a moment, to warm myself up and brighten my environment. Listening to the ocean helps this immensely. When I tried in the city I couldn't really reach the feeling of flow I can out here.

I think what I found out tonight makes more sense out of my love for the forest and discomfort of the city though as well. Speaking to my Dad, I found out that I'm actually quite likely part Native. My great-great-grandmother was Acadian in Cape Breton, and we can't trace the history back further than that. My Dad hower has isolated the rest of his family story. His Father is Irish. We can't seem to find the details yet, my cousin Matt has been working on them a lot and I hope he has more when I check with him. His father's father came over 1908. His mother was French, and I don't know her full story, but she was solidly french, from Guernsey island I believe. The catch is my Dad did a genetic test when he was younger, and it showed him as 1.5% Asian/Native American. He has an open hypothesis between Native/Asian, due to the amount of sailors in his family and their overseas conduct. He agreed though it was unlikely any of them had brought back an Asian wife with child. This leaves my great-great-grandmother in Cape Breton. It's known that the Acadians were chased out of Nova Scotia by the English after the war, but some went into the wild and hid with the Natives. My guess is part of my family was here when that happened, and stayed here, and at one point we made good friends with the locals. I don't know for sure if this is true but I hope it is. It would help me understand and feel even deeper in my connection with this land. Nova Scotia has always been deep in my heart, and it's felt like it is in a way a lot of people I know over here in Canada don't seem to be connected to their home. It really felt like my home.  The other part is when I allowed this filter onto my perspective my childhood seemed to resonate with clarity. I looked back at how I felt so at ease so quickly in the woods, how young I was when I insisted on getting an axe, how I instinctively began making spears of sticks around (I think) age 5, and even caught fish with them a couple times. How easy swimming came to me, and just how deeply in touch I felt with the land, nature, world around me. I also thought of the few Natives who I've gotten to know honestly, and somehow it seemed we got along easily and quickly. Part of me even looked back at some of my experiences with animals and let myself wonder. I still can't dismiss the way that cougar and wolf each held my eye so steady so long and the way it felt as having held no meaning. Being unable to dismiss it is far from confidently associating it though. I still have a ton more to learn, but it's just another world to explore, freshly discovered.

 It's also exciting because I've felt lately the Natives' old way of life carries more insight than we have attributed to it, and perhaps if I open myself up to this as a part of myself, even if I turn out to be wrong it has already opened me more to the ideas and made it easier for me to learn from them. That is enough for it to have value. Hopefully if I gain from them I can give back too, or really it would be nice to give them something even if I can take nothing. There is a lot of feeling inside of me which I attribute to empathy with their perspective on our transformation of their world, and it makes me feel like giving them a whole lot. When I say they I know I risk generalization and discrimination, but it refers more to a feeling than a true general collective. It seems in my broad perspective filter as well as from my personal experience Natives are more often in tune with their world around them and have more issues with how we're handling ourselves. Their role in the protests against the pipeline and other oil handling procedures has been instrumental. Having a cultural and personal history more directly connected to the environment around you would also have some real sense in having a greater feel of personal interconnection. An idea I open myself to on the principle of belief, can gain some standing on rational terms if thought of carefully. The question is investigating whether that seemingly supportive evidence is objective information or constructed and reinforced subjectivity.

Time for a puff and then some meditation.

Adaptation vs Transformation : Changing the Right Way

So I've been thinking a lot lately about just how different my palate has become with my diet adaptations. I've realized as I look at what I've been lately I can't realistically expect people to just start eating like this, even with the burning motivation of knowing they have cancer and are on chemotherapy. I seriously think the body would reject changing so much. I had a moment of realization of that as after I had a seriously satisfying swig of my veggie shake I handed it to my mom and encouraged her to have a sip, and the look on her face had a pretty strong statement to it : hoooolly crap YUCK. She didn't insult it or anything but was in disbelief when I said I enjoyed it. Then I was having a snack today, two raw eggs in a glass followed by a chug on unsweetened kefir (pretty much sour milk), and found both of them delicious, and even I was at the point of thinking that was pretty WTF. And now when I look at all kinds of foods I used to enjoy I feel sick to my stomach thinking about them! It almost sucks. But it's kind of awesome. I think what I've managed to do is slowly retrain my body to focus on the pleasure of long term rewards of food rather than the short term pleasure of flavour, and then as a result of that slow build of reinforcement it has allowed me to relearn what foods are enjoyable and which aren't.

There's no way I could have gone from how I ate even in healthier periods of my life to this fashion at the start of chemo. The comfort food binge I took after the stress of finding out the tumour had grown and I was going to have to do something, and while having all seizures and shit, set me into an even stronger pattern of reinforcement to focus on the short term pleasure of food and ignore long term negative. So this has been more of a slow and steady quest. It was a matter of relearning how to listen to my body, focusing on feeling good at a deeper, more meaningful level, and a changing of priorities in relation to food. I remembered a quote from a young man I worked with at my first ever job, at Boston Pizza. I got a drive with him from the gym to work, and we were talking about food. He was trim and strong and I was thinking he might have some tips, and I asked him about it. He explained himself quite well and succintly: food isn't fun, it's fuel. I remembered that clearly from the first time I heard it, because it resounded so well with me and was so clearly true. I realized then that had to be a goal for me, to actualize that realization in my own life. But at the time I was still caught up in short term pleasure, and unable to carry myself through that. Heck, when I was in the gym that day I probably did something like bicep curls, tri extension, shrugs and bench. Maybe a bit focused on superficial details rather than deep important stuff eh?

Back then I wasn't ready to confront myself. I needed to grow first, and I managed that. I think the work, the time, the travel, the friendships, relationships, even Winston, my dog, all had huge contributions to building me up to be ready to deal with actually changing myself. I feel like I knew I was going to have to deal with it eventually and was just procrastinating.  Hitting chemo and having to move home combined to force me into this confrontation. I had a lot of other psychological issues to do with my past and my inability to make it make sense from my memories, and anger, and just a bunch of complicated stuff I may try to talk about some day, but not right now. At the same time, I realized I needed to change my posture completely. Then, the last part was how I ate. That one was one of the biggest, one of the most effective, and is also definitely the most generally relatable.

It all began with becoming more mentally aware and focused on long term health goals of the food I ate rather than short term aesthetic or functional goals. I'd only ever thought with food before about details of results, mostly just stronger, and occasionally about trying to be at least a bit less chubby. As I began to take chemo, I began to wonder more about if my food could have effects on it. That was what began to open my mind more to the real deeper value of nutrition. As I started reading more and more I found more and more interesting stuff, but my inner sceptic always had a good ounce of doubt for each one, unable to see or understand objective proof. The other problem is I think there really is a lot of wrong info out there. I'm a bit of a stubborn bugger who has never learned very well from listening to others and mostly has to learn from mistakes and experience. So I slow and steady set down the path of improving my diet, a lot of which I did by feel. Early in it didn't take long to realize heavily processed food was no good. Truthfully though, I still ate a whole lot of junk the first good while of chemo. Ordering pizza, drinking pop, some candy and ice cream, and just a lot of somewhat  processed food. I was staying up at a solidly fat weight of two hundred and thirty-some-odd pounds for a while too. As I did that though, I did start to look into supplements at least a bit. First things were coconut oil and fish oil. I started using coconut oil in smoothies and coffee and taking fish oil at least some days.

I think it was when I decided to take responsibility for the tumour and engaged into a more proactive, liberated mindset that I began to take action in addressing what I was eating. Suddenly, I felt like my choices of what I ate had a comprehensible reason to be able to take action against the tumour inside my head. That feeling of new power gave me a huge level of new motivation to start changing things more. They still went pretty slowly at first. I definitely did start adding more smoothies, eating less bread, less sugar, less processed food, but what I didn't find at first was a ton of good nutrition to bring in. I think I focused on getting ideal macronutrients, lots of fat and protein of good kinds, but didn't worry too much about the details. Then, as I got into touch with the level of positive effect that had on me, I started to realize the potential of dietary changes and that really let me dig into a whole new level of motivation. There was another big part of it too: this blog. When I started trying to share what I was doing, it elevated my goals for myself to another level. I realized if I didn't do everything I could to manage my treatment and health to the best degree I can, if I allow a compromise to my health management I could so easily address to maintain itself continually and don't take advantage of what I can do, how can I hope to claim to be able to help other people facing the same problem. There's a whole new level of motivation for me when it's not just me who can gain from me holding to my strength of will and getting it done. Whoever you are out there reading this, you're carrying me through this too.

When I started to be able to dig deeper like that, things really got to change. I started cutting out food I was eating just for enjoyment, and it didn't bug me. Those things I was eating because they were healthy not because they were tasty? Mmm mm good. I still aim to make sure I enjoy what I eat, but I don't find it hard now. I just have to listen to my body and give it what it wants. I think it knows more than I do some times.

An interesting case point for that is my spinach craving. I always want to put spinach in all my smoothies and shakes, and prefer it drastically to all other green leafy veg. It tastes good, but I feel like I downright crave it. As I was looking up valuable nutrients today I was reading about vitamin E, which is very high value for nervous system development. I'm absolutely certain I am experiencing a lot of that right now. The amount of memories that have reopened themselves to me which I couldn't access for years is astounding. I feel like a child again waking back up into my body some times. I can just go back and walk through my childhood and see places I haven't been in years, share moments with people I haven't seen in ages, it's amazing. And it's just the beginning. It's made me realize how much I've shut myself off to through this whole experience, and how much more there is inside me than I was aware of for years. It's exciting as hell.

Getting back to changing though. I think that the method of change can have a huge relation to its effects. I was ready and open for all the changes I made, I came to them on my own terms. I'm more stubborn than most, so was less open to input and listening than most I think. Everyone has at least some of that in them though. You need to learn for yourself to really be able to trust it, and that's not something you can overcome just by momentary choice. You need to retrain your body! That's something I'm going to work a lot more on understanding to let me talk about it more. I'm definitely beginning down that road, and have stepped far enough to look back and yell about how it's a pretty path and others should follow, but I have a lot more to walk, and even the section I've gotten down I  haven't traversed and mapped it yet for react. This is going to be a big, long project I think.

Smoothie Science

Holy eh. Interesting piece of information this morning.

I was sitting down, drinking my morning herbal tea, and relaxing. I realized I felt really hungry and hadn't started to drink my morning smoothie as quickly as I should. I just went and drank it pretty quickly. It tasted a bit different than usual and had a slightly different texture. And then I immediately threw up.

I'd forgotten to add the fatty bits. I realized that pretty much right away, and went back over to the blender where more than half of what I'd made to chug through for the morning was left. I added a good pour of avocado oil, and a few tablespoons of coconut oil, mixed it up and poured another glass. Within 60 seconds of finishing vomiting my first smoothie of the day I chugged 500ml of the next one all in one go. Stayed down, felt great. I did that to prove a point. My instinct was my body was rejecting it becaue of the inappropriate macronutrient balance for a morning start up nutrition. My body needs that fat for some reason, and if it takes in just a pure carb shot that big to start it's not cool with it.

Another Step

So I've been working on a lot lately. Hard to explain how much really. I've been sorting out a lot of stuff inside my head, problems and issues I didn't deal with for ages and really should have. The experience of opening myself to medical help and chemotherapy and its change of my mindset have really transformed my relation to my own body and mind, and then the world around me as a result. I feel like I'm looking at things now in a much more positive light than ever before. Something I've realized in the last few days that's a pretty mindblowing thing to come to terms with: I don't think if I could go back I'd actually just wish this away. I think this tumour has given me more than it's taken away from me. Forcing me to confront myself in the ways I have and grow so much has been a huge contribution. Opening myself to my own weaknesses has helped me discover my own strength. Every challenge I've faced has been a chance for me to grow. I wish I'd stepped up to the plate sooner. I was so scared to deal with these things, held guilt over them, stress and anxiety. In my head it seemed like they'd be huge issues to deal with, insurmountable foes, but it's turned out every time once you chase the monster down and point the light at him he shrinks. I'm not going to talk too much about the specifics for now, I may get into those parts of the story some day if it seems like it's worth telling, but what I'm thinking about now is moreso what's relative to my central goal and purpose: actualizing the potential of this treatment as much as possible, developing a long term response to the threat of cancer in my life, and sharing as much as I can of the insight I gain as I do so.

I think the mental aspect of the challenge is extremely important. It's not possible or right for me to try and share the insight of what I gained by trying to relate the particulars. What I've been dealing with has been based on a set of events through my life building to this point. I do think though that while I may have experienced a set of extremes a lot of people deal with similar things to what I've been confronting. I found it was hard to be fully at peace with my memory of my life because it seemed incongruous with both my rational understanding of the world and the accounts of memory of people I loved and trusted. That spurred inside me a great sense of self-doubt, and I let that self-doubt attack me and pull me down, and even people around me, for ages. It feels great to have at least started dealing with that. Funny thought that's gone through my head a few times, is I feel almost like a born-again Christian, except I'm still definitely not joining any church! The world just makes more sense and looks a lot better, and it's easier to be more relaxed and nicer from that kind of a point of view.

I'm glad I'm continuing to find these parts that keep reinforcing my strength, because I do think over time the Temodal's effect on my body is slowly and surely building up. The changes I've made, I think dietary mostly, have made a huge difference on that, but they're not enough to completely overcome it. It's still FAR from the kind of idea I had in my head of what I'd be dealing with when facing chemo. It just takes a bit more time and effort in each day to keep myself feeling good, physically and mentally. I think my net effect is still coming out at a very manageable level, but the level of management input it is taking to keep me at that point is definitely significantly higher. I theorize that part of it is over time the body is trying to clean this stuff out and can't get all of it, and it's just building up that little bit of leave-behind slow and steady. I'm actually optimistic that if I continue to follow through on this diet model through the week off to boost that as a cleansing period I could potentially help myself out with next cycle. 119 doses left. 3087.5 g of Temodal to run through this body. Let's hope it gets lots of work done while it goes.

Clean and Lean(er)

Food. It's definitely making a difference. It's shockingly impressive how much physically better I feel at the end of this week. I have also taken up my dosage of eaten marijuana by 20% (5 capsules instead of 4) and maintained that for about a week now. I think that's a contributing factor as well, but it is more likely psychological and long term physical effects rather than the physical changes I've been experiencing. I've, as I mentioned briefly before, gone to a really "clean" diet and it's just feeling really freakin good. I'm impressed. It's all based on my subjective impression of the results but I'm doing my best to self-analyse honestly and actively.

I had previously stepped up to clean, but lately have gone up even more. I was heavier on fruit nuts and berries for my smoothies until the last couple days but I've just upped my vegetable intake a huge amount by discovering I absolutely love veggie shakes that feel amazingly good to drink. Rather than just trying to give a feel for it I'll give a basic account of what I'm trying to eat now. One other worthwhile note is I've started cutting lemon and adding it to all my water and holy crap I'm enjoying it, it's making me drink more water, and giving me tons of vitamin C. I'm changing too many factors to identify exactly what's doing what but that seems to be a beneficial choice. I drink water a TON through the day, and that's an essential part of feeling good. First thing in the morning (as soon as teeth are brushed and mouth is thoroughly cleaned/gargled), I get right into the water and don't stop until bedtime.

So food eaten today:

Breakfast:
Wake up, hot prune juice, very small cup.
Smoothie: baby tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, avocado oil(1 tbsp), hemp hearts, flax seed. I put in about 250ml of water and drank just under a liter. Probably 200g tomatoes, a lot of spinach, and definitely seed heavy as well. I try to keep a high balance of Omega 3 to Omega 6, and Hemp Hearts are 6 high, so I make sure to offset with a good deal of flaxseed which is much more Omega 3 high.
Supplements: fish oil 1g, vitamin D

Brunch:
Smoothie:
300g Raspberries, Spinach, flaxseed, coconut oil (2tbsp), plain skim greek yogurt, water.

Lunch:
6 pc Tuna Sushi Rolls
Supplement: 2g wild salmon fish oil

Dinner: 1/2 size breakfast smoothie, 2 raw eggs.

I do vary things more. Today was a bit of a low grocery day so it looks like I'm eating just the same stuff. The veggie smoothies are new, and they'll in the long term be more evenly rotated between fruit and nut smoothies for nutritional content. My body has just been telling me to eat lots of veggies so I've listened and it's felt really good. That's been a big focus through this whole thing, has been building up my ability to listen to my own body. I definitely don't structure my diet exclusively around feedback or external information, but instead have a set of internal feedback knowledge I use to filter through the external knowledge sources to help decipher which seem appropriate to try and adapt and which don't. Then, following that, I try to make sure to give different things a shot and hope to like them if they seem like they should be healthy. I don't expect to enjoy every meal I eat. I've actually been pleasantly surprised by how much I do enjoy..almost enough to feel weird. I really do like raw eggs..

Back to the main point though. Listening to the body. I think that's really essential in responding appropriately to medical challenges. Build the best understanding of yourself you can. Different things really do work better for different people. I definitely seem to enjoy a reasonably high fat diet, as long as they're easy digestible, usable fats. No hate on animal fats either, just good clean ones. I seem to respond a lot to where the animal comes from. I love wild fish, I love game meat still, but commercial farm meat I really feel like I notice the difference. Maybe knowing about it is just generating that feeling inside me, I really don't know. I'm definitely not going to claim I'm going to never eat any anymore, but I'm going to try to eat clean, varied meat and a lot more other high nutrition substances. I absolutely NEVER would have expected myself to even think about saying that, I used to have special dreams about the blood out of rare steaks.. So it goes!

I've had other areas of that as well. I need to research what's actually happening or my best reckoning of what's happening before I can explain it better, but between stretching, pressure point therapy/tension release, heat therapy, combinations of the above, and keeping the body in a very clean state have combined to make a shockingly large difference in this last week. I'm feeling better now than I was at the start of this cycle of chemo, and this is day 9, when I should be starting to be hit decently. One thing that's very interesting has been the value of really hot showers. I find at long periods I'll get a feeling of pressure at the base of my skull, and alongside that pressure just an extremely vague sense that something's not quite right in my head. If I shower, and keep temperature at an uncomfortably/borderline painfully hot temperature at that point, up and down the neck, and around the head, I'll generate what I think is a release of tension that presents me with a mild neurological stimulative sensation a bit like tingles right into the tips of my fingers and toes, and then when I'm getting hot I press with best pressure I can manage into where I feel the most tension at the base of the skull, and press in pulses. The reason I bother to go through the detail of explaining a slightly less sexual version of playing with myself in the shower is the level of difference it makes. It's hard to fully quantify or explain but it's astonishing. I'll go from feeling not quite right to feeling total clarity and 100%, a huge release of tension, easier to maintain better posture, it's just wicked. Another note is I do actually use that technique, and found that technique in fact, treating injuries and scar tissue deposits in joints/muscles, for tension release. I'd use it on my back/shoulders as best I could, but not so intense. In the morning, drinking a smoothie, a ton of water, then showering and doing that leaves me feeling just great. I still have been holding myself back some on activity level as I wait to move into my new house when it gets set up, and I can get to work on upcoming life projects and stuff. I definitely overtapped for a bit and this high rest period has held some value. I can tell by my sleep periods shortening it's coming to an end though and it's time to start tiring myself out a reasonable amount again.

That will make for more interesting posts. A puppy, some projects, and a picture of what's coming up in life.

The Morning After

So I wrote for the first time in a while last night. It turned out to be a long post. I think it was good for me. It turns out I may be using this blog as some modern e-daptation of a confession booth almost. It's my way of clearing up and pushing out the turmoil of my mind, trying to structure it at least a little, and see what it looks like when I actually push it out into reality. I share what I write pretty openly and don't edit it very much, I think it's better to try and share this experience as what it was like for me in the moment and from my eyes, rather than a glossed and controlled presentation.

I woke up this morning feeling better than I have in ages. Pretty odd considering it's mid-cycle. Last night was day 8 cycle 8. I actually think it may be my dietary revisions boosting my body's maintenance systems to the point where they can keep things in a more adequate balance against the wonderful life saving toxins. It may turn out to be just a one day off thing, but I actually feel like I'm full of beans today, lots of energy, and a lot of the negative stuff that has been caught in my mind feels a lot more free and able to be let go of. That's a part of why it's tricky to determine cause of this effect too however.

I've spent a lot of time lately working very hard at confronting myself about some negative issues caught deeply inside me. I've been trying to seek out the real base of some anger and other feelings that have been hard for me to deal with. My anger is really my worst one. I have a temper that greatly discomforts me. It was a huge challenge and problem for me growing up and one I told myself I'd dealt with, but rather than having actually confronted I just buried deep inside myself. The stress of this time has brought it back up closer to the surface, and times I've had it brought about in me have been terrifying. When I feel the chemicals release I get this feeling of a doubt of self-control. The feeling of fear I get as I begin to feel that is almost like the feelings I'd get with precursor sensations of a seizure. My whole life I've told myself this temper is just some natural bred in thing. I'm a barbarian or a warrior or whatever. I begin to doubt it lately though. More and more as I push in at it my anger and frustration seems to be at the center of everything, with a much more complicated set of reasons behind it. I don't really feel like I understand it well enough to try and explain it now. I'm going to keep working on it though. I'll actually be going to a shrink early in January to get some more discourse going and try to bring in a nice objective, wise, perspective. I probably won't talk about that much on here though.

I feel like my reckoning against that temper and part of myself, the negative thoughts, could hopefully be a parallel to my chemo experience. Scary to first encounter, hard to begin the battle, and not an easy one to fight, but one with a lot of lessons and a lot of gains to seek if it can be confronted. I  don't thin I'll ever totally take that part of myself out, but I need to at least rebuild my control over it, and in a more honest and direct fashion.

Stepping back to just the real life basics though. Up early, feeling good. Drank my prune juice, let Winston out, writing on the blog. Plan for today is pretty basic. Pick up the POT woodchipper for the tractor, spend some time with my family. It was potentially going to be delivery day for the "minihome" (my mcmansion I call it) today, but we had some bad weather last night so it's going to be cancelled. Not too big of a deal though, it should still be able to be in before long. It'll be nice to get to move into my own place. I've been off my land and staying at my mom's cottage a while now and it's interesting how different it feels. I got out on my land for a few hours yesterday, working and playing with my Dad, and that left me feeling really good. I find myself thinking of future potential and hope and all kinds of good things. I don't seem to relate well to staying in family houses. I definitely won't whine about it, it's an incredibly beautiful place and is treating me well, but I definitely excitedly anticipate getting to move back into my own little world.

Well, time for breakfast. Off to the blender!

Winter Visit

So as I feared I've dropped off here a great deal since getting the positive news. I may have said before but I find it more of a challenge to speak about the upsides and happy parts of my story. It's not to most people I'm writing to and sharing this with, it's a particular and small sup-group that may not even exist but I hope one day may: fellow brain cancer battlers. I have been given great generosity and kindness, and support from my family and the people around me that sometimes I feel like isn't even fair. I'm being set up with a place to live that is of my dreams, and the potential to chase goals and adventures that go beyond where I even imagined. It's not some mansion or a trip around the world, it's a"minihome" on a decent sizes rural lot, a tractor for working on it, a quad for adventures, and the hope/dream of a boat to get back out to that ocean and return to shark fishing on. Yeah okay that's a lot. I've tried my best to be appreciative, to show my thanks, and just to be a good son to my parents for being so kind to me. I definitely haven't been perfect, but times haven't been quite as perfect as my brief account sounds either. Still amazing though.

But back to the point. What has been my huge underlying concern is that that's just not fair and not realistic, and it's going to make other people who could have to walk down this road feel like they can't relate to me and it loses its meaning. I guess I'm also scared of being judged as some spoiled rich kid. At the same time, the last thing I want to do is even be slightly dishonest. It's put me at a feeling of conflict and hesitation that I've allowed to just drive me away from here. What I need to do is just be honest, be careful in how I express myself, but not hold back the truth for fear of judgement. I've done things and been through things that have earned my own respect, and that was harder than earning the respect of others around me. It's time for me to carry myself forward with that.

So I've been transforming viciously mentally through this time period as well. I've been dealing with a huge change in my state of mind and approach to life. I've been coming to terms with some very serious part of myself I hadn't faced up against in years. The feeling of emotional release that began as I started to let myself believe in a chance to live further into life than I'd thought of for years continued and continued. I've laughed and cried more in the past few weeks than I did in years before. I've began to actually think of a future with real potential to do things, to grow, to experience life. It's pretty enjoyable. One thing I've been careful to remind myself of all along though is a slight hint of progress in chemo is a LONG way from defeating cancer. Even if chemo continues to be very successful, even if it goes beyond the hopes and dreams of predictions, there is nothing to say the little tiny hints that are left can't mutate and come back for me. I don't mean to say that in a depressing fashion. I actually am smiling a great deal. It's just that I need to be careful to remember that to hold myself properly in the balance between confidence and arrogance. I have intent and goals to be proactive in response to that added risk and keep myself from having to deal with that, or as I've said before, to fight it as well as I can. I just need to keep honest with how I approach it.

 I'm just pushing deeper and deeper with diet as it continues, and I've gained more clear resolution in how I'm going to pursue that moving forward. I've really continued down the same avenue as before and just gotten even a bit more serious with it. I'm shockingly close to a vegetarian now, even more than before, eating meat maybe a few times a week now. I'm eating seeds, nuts, yogurt, coconut, and veggies for pretty much all my meals. Smoothies all the time. Salad and unpasteurized cheeses.  I've gotten to the point where I'm not focusing on the taste of the food anymore, just the nutritional content, and that it tastes good enough I can get it in without irritating my stomach. I don't intend to hold it to that level long term. It's damn impressive how good it feels though. I've also continued to pursue the paleolithic/ketogenic/high fat low grain aspect. I've gotten further with it and it feels like my body has adapted to it now. I was getting fat cravings for a while but I just feel normal now. I do still definitely eat a high fat diet. My step-grandmother gave me chicken soup for dinner tonight, and I cooked it then added in a... shockingly large amount of butter, and then some coconut oil. God damn that was good soup. And I'm still losing weight and have no serious variance on blood tests! I think where I've come to now with my eating routine is significantly better than I've had it before and I hope to keep improving it. That's the key, I think it's great, but holy crap is there ever a ton of room for improvement!

My eating is pretty standardized. If you read before, the smoothie mixes from before are similar, but I'm adding Kale and more baby spinach more often, and going a lot heavier on seed content. My eating routine is very regular. I wake up, immediately rinse mouth with water, brush teeth, then have to drink hot prune juice (because of the surgical anti-nauseants, to keep the..system...working). I then drink about 2L of water with a bit of lemon in it, and start making my smoothie. I usually make a bit more than a L of smoothie, pretty dense. Probably getting most of my day's calories in that first smoothie. Later in the day I'll tend to go for salad decked with goat cheese (easy to digest) with nuts and fruit and stuff. Other munchies are raw fruit, raw veggies, hummus, rice crackers. Other major diet point would be raw eggs. Those feel damn good to eat and I actually even enjoy them now (yeah I know, bit messed up). I do have an occasional meal with meat in it. My last one(prior to soup) was a bastardized poutine of some strange form. It was a leg of duck, a bag of cheese curds( fresh from quebec) a can of beef gravy, and some coconut oil. My body seems to want lots of clean fats, lots of fruit and veggies, especially dark green veggies, and lots of nuts and seeds. I need to keep stocked on protein, and keep sugar up a decent basic bit. I also have to drink a TON of water. Minimum 6-8L a day now. I will wake up feeling pretty crappy, but if I go through this eating regimen and stick to everything I can have a good decently active day where I feel really good. Also as long as I eat a bunch of hash oil and smoke a decent bit too, can't forget that part. Going back to the food though, I've also formed a set of long term goals around that. Beginning next summer I'm going to get to work around my property at setting up a set of greenhouses and gardens to grow as much as I can of my own fruit and vegetables, and hunt, fish, and raise as much as I can of my own meat/eggs. I'll just start with basics, but there will be lots of room to keep building and it should be a great life project.

As for the treatment I've been reading more and more and the more I read the more I realize how little I know and how long it will take to actually learn everything I want to learn. There's no way I'll be able to learn everything I'd like to about managing treatment/cancer in time for the duration. I find that uplifting though. The fact there's room for improvement just means if things aren't going well I can keep stepping up to the plate more If there is still an ounce of power in my hands to resist this I will use it. And it seems like the more I read, the more I open my eyes, the more power I find thanks to the help of other people. The fact I can potentially use this treatment again, it's working this time, and I have the power to improve my management of the treatment for the next time, allows me to feel honest and balanced in opening myself to optimism about an actual meaningful, significant future. It felt like a certainty of death I had to embrace as a responsibility to be honest with myself before, but now it's just an added risk. I've discovered allowing that to settle in has also opened me up to myself way more. Old memories, old emotions, new emotions, all kinds of confusing, stressful, awesome, ridiculous, beautiful, bullshit. And the ability to reach into and touch parts of myself I forgot existed. I feel like my inner child is coming back to life maybe. It's kind of awesome but kind of has its downsides because I'm sort of not totally in control of some of that part of myself. I think that's partly just because I've been really stressed with all this too, but I definitely need to spend some time and care reckoning with these changes and what they mean.

One part that's kind of exciting is I feel like I'd really closed myself off to the idea of love and truly opening myself to such an experience, I felt like I'd be this destructive weight. I always pictured myself starting into a relationship with a girl, her finding out I have cancer, feeling obliged to be kind and deal with it, and then things just spiraling downhill. I saw how hard watching me go through surgery was on my whole family and on my girlfriend at the time (who I spoke to for the first time in a while recently, it was nice), and I pictured the torment of having a young person I loved who knew they were going to die, who couldn't/wouldn't even consider serious long term commitments because of a feeling of inability to make that promise, and then the experience of having to love them and watch them die, and I didn't want to do that to someone else. I thought it would be better for me to just enjoy the rest of my life as much as I can without worrying about that, enjoy friendship and masturbation and work and carry on. Even though it's still a lot more likely for me to die young than someone else, for some reason this hint of victory is all it takes for me to feel freed from that certainty and actually open myself to that. The fact I have a plan of attack for response, a life goal to do all that I can to resist it, is enough to let me at least try. I'm not exactly about to get out on the prowl, being on chemo means I'm not exactly maximally on top of my game (... game? could be an issue anyway) and I think going through this will leave me with some stuff in my head I need to deal with and come to terms with before I try to take on something else, but shit just the idea it's possible is pretty enjoyable.

That is just one reflection of this new feeling of embracing a more positive outlook on life. Alongside that feeling comes a great challenge I've been dealing with lately and one I definitely don't feel like I've found a resolution for: the balance between confidence and arrogance. I know, and have seen demonstrated over and over, the value of confidence. Believing in yourself seems to empower you on some almost magical level, if my drunk memories of high school dances are correct( ... ). At the same time though, tooting your own horn is not something I want to do and I think carries great weakness in itself. It's a huge need in life to always recognize your own weakness, vulnerabilities, need for improvement. It has been recognizing those that has let me find hope. When I took the cancer on as my own responsibility, a consequence of my own mistreatment of my body, it became easier to believe in my ability to empower the treatment and further enable its success. That change of mindset has enabled me to further improve my diet and lifestyle habit leaps and bounds. It requires knowing I've been a huge dumbass a ton of times before to see that it's actually really easy to do better and maybe that might help fix things! It's been introspective self-criticism that has revealed to me most of my best empowering moments and built my confidence the most. That demonstrates clearly the weakness of confidence. Too confident and you end up blind to those weaknesses, unable to accept criticism, and then from that you fall into stasis and end up becoming weak. To stay safe you need to always remember that no matter how good you are, you still actually are a total goof because everybody is, life is just that freakin complicated. That's been my answer anyway.

 As I get all these experiences which are empowering, which people tell me I deserve to feel great about, to be confident for, I don't want to go blind to my weaknesses and challenges and then end up not fighting as hard as I could, and losing when I could have tried harder. At the same time though, I need the confidence to keep trying, to believe in myself. I think it's about the tension between potential and actualization. I can believe in myself and a strength I find deep in myself but can't bring out. That strength seems when I look in to be great power, to be able to potentially carry me to great things, a burning fire ready to light a clear path forward. The trick is, it's really tricky to get it out and use it properly. If I try to bring it out raw I just burn myself and other people and that's no good. If When I bring it out in a presentable fashion, it turns out it's not so bright, the case I can build around it isn't exactly perfect, and maybe it's not getting all the air it should, and really perhaps it's moreso just a candle. Like everyone else's. I think it's pretty hard to let yourself out into the world, to tap into that strength. The big trick and one of the problems of confidence has been if I listen to the compliments and see what I see when I look in, I feel like I'm going to have to be cocky, because it looks better than other people's. The trick it took me 25 years to realize though is that's all perspective. It's what I see when I look in, combined with my highlight points. Big whoop that can look good, I'm sure everyone's can. It's like the gas for your candle, it doesn't matter how much gas you've got, it's how you burn it that counts. I hopefully will make it through this storm and burn a lot brighter afterwards.