The lost year.

Today marks the anniversary of my being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It's also the day I was told, to all the medical teams utter amazement, that while I still had cancer when they suspended treatment 4 months ago (due to the fact the treatment itself was about to kill me) ... the scan I insisted on having last Friday to "see if there had been any progress on my own for the last 4 months" has revealed ....

Zero % cancer. It's all gone. Even though it is considered abnormal and not what anyone was expecting, I no longer have any cancer at all. I'm still recovering my equilibrium even now, cloud 9 is a weird place.

While I am declaring this the "lost year" I also want you to know it's the year where I found myself. Just an unbelievable ride. Scary as shit but ultimately the most rewarding of my entire life.

congrats

hope the cancer stays gone

The best kind of post to read, Geof.

My brother Dave continues to battle stage 4 colon cancer and he's not out of the woods. He's still feeling pretty good though, so that's a plus. Not having been there, I can't possibly know what it feels like to receive such a diagnosis, but it isn't hard to imagine the profound sense of relief one must feel hearing that one is now cancer free.

Here's hoping there is more joy ahead for you.

Congrats on your conquest! Does this make you Lord of the Zombies?

Let me say this : the best of luck to your brother Dave ... and that your mindset is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING OF ALL in beating this shit. You have to be so stubbornly married to a positive outcome ... like actually the conviction of that outcome not just saying it to yourself but living as if it's already true ... that it's almost like adopting a state of delusional denial. You're not denying you have it but you are denying that you won't kill it. You're going to kill it with will power because in your mind, you already have. If that makes any sense.

When my chemo/radiation was suspended because the team thought it was going to kill me at the end there, the rest of the team were adamant that the only way to rid myself of the remaining tumors subsequently was to have them surgically removed. It was going to be a risky surgery. 100% certainty that this would have to be done no matter what I wanted to believe.

I said not yet. Schedule a new series of scans (which would take 2 months due to workload) and we'll see what it looks like at that point, which would be 4 months post treatment by the time it rolled around. then depending what we find, I'll decide if I get surgery or not. Further chemo/radiation was out of the question.

I had already undertaken a dietary and meditation resonant frequency plan of action I devised from my research into such things health/cancer related ... and ramped it up and stuck to it like glue for that entire period. I'd actually begun this while still in treatment but afterwards, with the threat of the grand surgery ... and no "conventional" treatment available; I got super serious.

All this time I was doing my utmost to live as if I'd already beaten it. In my mind, delusional or not, I was already fully healed. (of course in reality I was not but that's the point) ... what I mean is when the scans came around I would be fully healed by then. In the meantime, act like I was. Stay with the "alternative" approach but believe in the fact that I had it beaten already. Not tell myself, that's just words ... but living it.

Yeah, I get that this appears delusional to many. I however believe if you want something to change in your life, if it's really important ... you have to live like it already has changed in order to make room for that change to exist. You create that change in part by being it.

Today my medical team called me the "exception" and encouraged me to continue doing whatever the hell I'd been doing ... to keep being that "exception" ... because in their exact words what had happened was not normal ... was completely unexpected ... and that my blood and organs were reflecting a state of recovery that they said they would be very optimistic to expect as far out as 1 and a half to 2 more years from now. If at all. "Normally" .... they said "what you have done just doesn't happen. We can't explain it. You're extraordinarily lucky." Hell in my bone tests just last week the exposed bone (jaw) not only behaved much more like healthy bone than irradiated bone (which in medical terms NEVER RECOVERS, EVER ... their words not mine) but this was after the highest chemo/radiation dose program they have ever given anyone, again ... they told me this. All because I was already stage 4 before the cancer was discovered.

So good luck to your brother. Make it happen Dave. It's not impossible. Fucking difficult, but not impossible.

That's fantastic news Doc, congratulations!

So nice to read.

Even if the word is overused nowadays, this is trucking awesome!!! I am happy things worked out for you.

Does that mean we will get motorcycles and parachuting dogs now? Or at least a properly working forum?

@rote7saidin@rote7

Even if the word is overused nowadays, this is trucking awesome!!! I am happy things worked out for you.

Does that mean we will get motorcycles and parachuting dogs now? Or at least a properly working forum?

Look, he got cured/cured himself, he isn't an internet miracle worker!

@DOCsaidin@DOC

Let me say this : the best of luck to your brother Dave ... and that your mindset is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING OF ALL in beating this shit. You have to be so stubbornly married to a positive outcome ... like actually the conviction of that outcome not just saying it to yourself but living as if it's already true ... that it's almost like adopting a state of delusional denial. You're not denying you have it but you are denying that you won't kill it. You're going to kill it with will power because in your mind, you already have. If that makes any sense.

When my chemo/radiation was suspended because the team thought it was going to kill me at the end there, the rest of the team were adamant that the only way to rid myself of the remaining tumors subsequently was to have them surgically removed. It was going to be a risky surgery. 100% certainty that this would have to be done no matter what I wanted to believe.

I said not yet. Schedule a new series of scans (which would take 2 months due to workload) and we'll see what it looks like at that point, which would be 4 months post treatment by the time it rolled around. then depending what we find, I'll decide if I get surgery or not. Further chemo/radiation was out of the question.

I had already undertaken a dietary and meditation resonant frequency plan of action I devised from my research into such things health/cancer related ... and ramped it up and stuck to it like glue for that entire period. I'd actually begun this while still in treatment but afterwards, with the threat of the grand surgery ... and no "conventional" treatment available; I got super serious.

All this time I was doing my utmost to live as if I'd already beaten it. In my mind, delusional or not, I was already fully healed. (of course in reality I was not but that's the point) ... what I mean is when the scans came around I would be fully healed by then. In the meantime, act like I was. Stay with the "alternative" approach but believe in the fact that I had it beaten already. Not tell myself, that's just words ... but living it.

Yeah, I get that this appears delusional to many. I however believe if you want something to change in your life, if it's really important ... you have to live like it already has changed in order to make room for that change to exist. You create that change in part by being it.

Today my medical team called me the "exception" and encouraged me to continue doing whatever the hell I'd been doing ... to keep being that "exception" ... because in their exact words what had happened was not normal ... was completely unexpected ... and that my blood and organs were reflecting a state of recovery that they said they would be very optimistic to expect as far out as 1 and a half to 2 more years from now. If at all. "Normally" .... they said "what you have done just doesn't happen. We can't explain it. You're extraordinarily lucky." Hell in my bone tests just last week the exposed bone (jaw) not only behaved much more like healthy bone than irradiated bone (which in medical terms NEVER RECOVERS, EVER ... their words not mine) but this was after the highest chemo/radiation dose program they have ever given anyone, again ... they told me this. All because I was already stage 4 before the cancer was discovered.

So good luck to your brother. Make it happen Dave. It's not impossible. Fucking difficult, but not impossible.

I have heard similar things about attitude being key to recovery with cancer. Too bad my mom couldn't find that same attitude. Of course it might have just been the alien parasite living in you that wanted to live and killed the cancer. :)

@DOC

One thing you and brother Dave have in common is a positive attitude. All the reading I have done suggests that attitude makes a huge difference. Even in cases where the person who is afflicted with the disease ultimately succumbs to it, in the meantime, the person lives longer and with a better quality of life.

Another thing the two of you have in common is that the medical team stopped the treatment at a time when chemo was about to kill him. He had time to recover enough to where they started the treatment again some months later.

Sadly, colon cancer is one of the easiest to detect early and cure, but one needs to obtain a periodic colonoscopy, especially if cancer runs in the family - and this, Dave did not do.

Immediately upon symptoms of an intestinal blockage, he had to undergo a colostomy. He described for me how this made it difficult for him to go food shopping or out to a show as, at any time he would have an attack of gas, the usual fart that any of us may experience would break the seal on the bag and leave him suffering the indignity of the stain and the smell. If that caused a chuckle, know that Dave was able to chuckle over it as well in hindsight, pardon the pun. He was determined not to be a shut-in and the doctors promised him a reversal of the procedure and a reconnection of the plumbing if he would become cancer free and with that, he determined he had to beat it.

Eight months or so after having the bag hung on his side, he underwent two additional procedures to reroute the personal plumbing to get rid of the bag and for another year or so, he appeared out of the woods.

Now he is back to fighting, but going to work and living life as if he were going to beat it again.

Outstanding news DOC. Take this lost year slap a bow on it, and put it under the tree because this is a great way to wrap up the year with great news.

Congratulations.