Why Im Not Doing Chemo
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Did any of you have a major traumatic event before you were diagnosed? The lady who does my lymphedema therapy said almost every woman she has treated had something traumatic happen 6 months to a year before dx. In my case it was my stepfather & husband both dying within 6 months of each other. Hubby died in August of 2010 and I was diagnosed 8 months later. Is it possible that the event drops our immune response and allows the cancer cells to take over? Just wondering.
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Cancer is just the dark, flipside of our cells miraculous ability to grow and regenerate. I don't believe that there is nothing we can do about it- medical, lifestyle, alternative, etc, I have certainly tried so many things- but cancer is a problem as old as life itself.
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Well I was always healthy, ate right and except for the occasional cold, never a sick day in my life. Still got the beast. Sorry I sound negative but I just think it happens for some people and not for others. I know people who have abused their bodies for years and lived to be in their nineties. Like I said it's a crap shoot IMO. I still eat healthy and excercise but I don't believe it will keep the cancer away if it wants to come back. Had my vitamin D levels checked and they were pretty much normal.
I also know people who did everything right after they were diagnosed and still went to stage four. Luck of the draw. I refuse to balme myself for getting it nor will i blame myself if it comes back.
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chiluvr, I went through hell the last 3 years in my career. Then I retired and was diagnosed 4 months later with cancer. Ironically I needed anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs during my last year of working full time, but have not needed them since my bc dx. THAT alone tells you how bad it was.
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We all have our individual beliefs about what causes cancer. I certainly don't blame myself..too much wasted energy, but I do believe it can be triggered by environment, diet, lifestyle, trauma, stress, illness, and genetics as well. I'm still going to do everything possible to keep my body in optimal condition...if for no other reason than I will benefit from doing it. QOL is a priority for me.
yorkiemom: I was in a very stressful job also...retired five years before bc hit me. Those little cells can be in there for many years, doing nothing, and then the immune system goes into overload and can't continue to maintain it's healthy balance, and cancer rears its ugly head.
Blue: you're right...it is a slow grower. I'm going to get thermography in the future because it can spot those growing cells long before mammogram.
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Kaara: I have always wondered if my bc was a result of the burst appendix that put me in the hospital for 9 days. (I actually went in on a Friday night and they did not operate until Monday evening with exploratory surgery.) I came out of the hospital with a case of shingles which took another three weeks to resolve. I believe that perhaps I had DCIS that became invasive after the appendix surgery in April of 2009. ( I found the lump in August of 2009.) Of course I will never know the answer, but I am trying to keep my immune system in the best possible shape.
Eve: I have been reading, with great interest, your saga. I am sending you positive healing thoughts for what ever decisions you make.
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Yorkie Mom - I started taking the lorazepam with my last full time job as a church secretary. The stress was unbelievable. I was having panic attacks, etc.
You know this is the only place where I can let my hair down and speak my mind. Family wants to believe that because I had a DMX I will be fine. I may be and I may not be. I guess I'm living in denial also. Then when I see myself naked it hits me. "Who the hell is that staring at me in the mirror"?!!
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chiluvr, everything changes when the Big C rears its ugly head. I'll never be the same. DH is convinced we can put this all behind us once my rads are done. But for me, every mammo, MRI, scan, pap smear etc. will mean a time of fear, while I wait. What used to be routine, is now hugely important for my peace of mind. Hopefully after awhile I will start taking these tests in stride. Hopefully.
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yorkiemom: All you can do is take the best care possible of yourself and get tested regularly. In the meantime, don't let fear of "what could be" take away from enjoying your moments in time.
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Thanks Kaara. I know what you say is true. I had these "routine" for BC scans last Friday, and my imagination is running wild. Will find out Wednesday what they saw. Hopefully nothing. This is a new reality for me. I know I will get used to it. Meanwhile, I have lots of planning to do for Christmas. DD, the younger, arrives tomorrow and I can't wait to see her! Planning stuff with her, DD, the older, and family. Gotta get my priorities straight.
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chiluvr .. I had a root canal tooth that gave me fits for 3 yrs ... then got BC ...had multiple infections in the DBL mast, TEs etc until I had the tooth yanked. All the levels of dental professionals kept saying it looked pretty good on the xrays and looked like it was healing and that they wouldn't yank it. But I read and read and had it yanked and voila! no more infections. Under the tooth where they couldn't see had some infection. I have read and read some more and will never have another root canal ... too many crevices that they can't fill ... bacteria moves in. Once in one of my TE infections, I asked the PS to culture it and sure enough it was a common mouth bacteria. There is actually a study being done now about the connection between root canals and BC.
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chiluvrl, thanks. I hope I'm being logical here.
Kaara, I know we shouldn't have to defend our decisions here, but for the sake of those who misunderstand what I'm doing, I explain again and again with the hopes perhaps they will understand where I"m coming from. The problem comes when people read one or two remarks without considering earlier threads that would pretty much give a better understanding of what & why. People jump into the middle or end of threads without reading the original post that would explain the what & why's or stick to the thread topic. I've been guilty as well.
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Eve - anyone that tries to point out the risk you are taking by not doing chemo only cares about you - I care a great deal as I cared about wornoutmom - look what happened to her.
All the best for your surgery.
Sue
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I feel I need to aplogize for being so negative. I have been having pains in my upper left thigh and am scheduled to have another bone scan next month. I feel helpless and feel like this roller coaster will never stop. My ten year old asked me the other day if my cancer is gone for good, I don't know how to answer that.
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i would hope anyone experiencing progression would consider chemo as more of a possibility, personal prejudices aside.
best of luck Eva
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Eve, you're wrong. I have been reading a lot of the posts on this forum and I do know your history and although you don't need to justify anything to anyone, in my humble opinion, you have done it wrong from the beginning and are continuing on that same path. Like susie said, if we didn't care, we wouldn't comment. For some reason, your body likes to produce cancer and I would hit the cancer with a sledge hammer until it submits. You have been trying to enhance your immune system and that didn't work. Logic dictates you need to try something different. It's your life though. Good luck!
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I am not a big believer in the 'trauma' bringing on cancer. Perhaps it could play a role, but I think it is one of hundreds of conditions that are at play. If you look back in your life there were probably lots of times that you would have developed cancer if it was simply a dramatic event or illness that triggered it.
Perhaps it is the misfiring of our system that is trying to fight the cancer that makes the stresses in our life seem more difficult to handle at that time. The stress that overwhelms us is actually a result of our developing cancer rather than the cancer being the result of the stress.
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I don't think trauma had anything to do with my cancer. My greatest life stresses came in my 20's and it wasn't until I reached my settled and stable 40's that I developed the beast. That's one of the reasons I hate the "cancer will teach you life lessons or help you learn to appreciate what you've got" schmaltz. I was pretty damned happy with my life pre-BC and I was well aware of how lucky I was.
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Hi Eve,
The jumble of all of our different cancer characteristics causes lots of misunderstanding. Guides like the NCCN Guidelines are general recommendations based on the most commonly occurring characteristics. People want simple answers to complicated problems. As a society we tend to choose "pills" that only take a limited amount of effort to do, rather than long-term commitments like diet and exercise. We tend to choose having "pictures" of the insides of our body like sequential exposure to radiation because we can have them done fairly briefly for us to get some quick answers about the status of our disease, even though as consumers we and our providers have failed completely to ever get the medical providers to set up and maintain a continuous tally of the amount of radiation exposure we have had over time. There is nothing difficult or impossible about that kind of computerized record-keeping, but it isn't being done in our behalf. We tend to prefer to pretend the exposure is "minimal" each time, even though it is cumulative.
Using common sense is much more difficult than anyone wants to admit.
When the known carcinogenic effects of modern treatments start adding up for individuals and result in adverse outcomes, no one steps forward to be honest about how much those treatments effect the outcome. We all know that each choice we make is our own, and that those who make the recommendations to us (with no documented effort to keep track of our running total of exposure to toxic treatments) do not have to cope on a personal basis with the results.
Thanks for your patient, thoughtful discussions in your own behalf as well as the behalf of others.
-AlaskaAngel
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Sure an organic, vegetarian diet is helpful. Tell me how am I to know if the pain I am having isn't reccurance if I don't have an xray or bone scan? Even if we did none of those things, radiation is in our environment. I know people who have gone the conventional route and people who gone the unconventional route who have relapsed. There is no way of knowing who will relapse which ever path we choose. I do agree it's a smart idea to eat healthy and excercise, it does improve chances but it's not a guarentee.
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Hi D4hope,
Each person has to use their own situation and circumstances to decide what makes sense and what doesn't. Scans that include radiation exposure make sense in some situations, and not as much sense in others. We don't always know which choice to make. We each take some risks in deciding which treatments to take and which ones not to take.
In addition to that, as a consumer I believe patients should be openly given a rough estimate of the cost for each of these procedures at the time they are recommended. I've had many scans and I've never had anyone who prescribed them provide that information in order to help me make a decision that is relevant to my circumstances. When I buy groceries, I get to look at the price before I buy, but not when I make a decision about buying medical care.
What is wrong about radiation is that no effort has been made to track our cumulative exposure along the way to help us make the decisions about which scans to have done or not done.
AlaskaAngel
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AlaskaAngel....All good points that you make, but sadly, it will never happen. Instead of mammogram, why not thermogram which shows suspicious areas much earlier than mammo, then an MRI to confirm, with zero exposure to radiation. Since my dx, I've had enough radiation to light up a city block, now they want to give me more to make sure the bc doesn't return. These are the same doctors that told me it was ok to take HRT because it would prevent bc and heart attacks, before they told me that it would actually cause bc and provide no protection for the heart.
Now I have another doctor that says I can give you vitamin and antioxidant infusions that will build up your immune system so that it can fight off disease on its own.....I'm also going to put you on a diet that will make it difficult for cancer to thrive in your body, and you will feel and look better as a result. None of these medications are going to make you feel bad or give you long lasting SE's.
There are no guarantees with either option, so which do you choose?
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My onc doesn't order regular scans just for that reason - too much exposure to radiation weighed against the risk of a recurrence. However, my DH has to have a CT scan every year - last one due early next year. The risk of recurrence of his bowel cancer in the lung is so high, they have to do the scans. If he hadn't had regular CT scans after the original bowel cancer, they would have never found the lung nodule.
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Alaska Angel mentioned cost. I saw on a doctumentary the other night women & men dx with cancer who could no longer afford their treatments. These people were then denied treatments even for advance cancer. One woman lost her hospital bed, and other needed equiptment because she couldn't pay. Before I had insurance I asked the doctors ... ok, what's the cost? I'm going to have to face these bills and I want to know up front what's the charge. When they learned, I couldn''t pay they thought it was ok I didn't do the treatment. They just said mostly likely I wouldn't have a problem...most people like to throw the kitchen sink at it. So don't blame me for not doing more...apparently I didn't need it, according to my doctors. It was cancer prevention they said...cancer prevention...hmm..so I happened to be one of the unlucky ones...but a lot of women they said never had recurrences after surgery.
The first year, yes, I didn't learn, but since the second dx, I've been on a journey to get to the bottom of why my body broke in the first place. So...don't tell me I've been irresponsible. It takes a lot of discipline to change your eating habits and lifestyle...not perfect, but I'm sure a lot better. My recent blood workup has never been as good as it is now. My oncologist said I look pretty healthy which is more than I can say four years ago in light of blood tests and etc.
My oncologist said after my surgery I will be cancer free. Cancer Free! I've learned a lot from this journey, and after recovery there are a lot of things I want to do than worry about cancer. The bad breast will be gone, and I hope never have to wrestle with all this again. I will have to do herceptin and maybe 1 month of tamoxifen. So...later in January, hopefully I can move on from all this research, plus spending too much time here at bco...and finish my books and etc.
So many of you have been my support group through all this. Thanks
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D4Hope...do you have an oncologist? I didn't think I needed one, but love the one I have right now. It's good to have someone who will listen to your concerns, and fears. We can give you our opinions and refer you, but none of us here can tell you what to do. Hopefully you do have a doctor (oncologist or cancer naturalpath) who will work with you. Tell her your concerns, pains and etc. I'm sure they will give you the needed scans to see if it's cancer. I hope I won't need anymore scans...my first PET scan and as I understand it as long as I have no cancer pain I don't need anymore scans...although my oncologist still wants me to do a brain scan???
Scans are good at least for peace of mind. Hope you feel better...and don't worry about being negative...when you feel bad it's hard to feel good about life.
(((hugs)))
below is a quote from bco...skin sparing mastectomy section:
A lot of people's first response is to give me all the decision-making responsibility. But they're happier when they feel they can make their own decisions. I usually say, 'Don't trust me, don't trust anybody. If what I say doesn't make sense, don't do it.' Most people are more satisfied with that. They feel better if they're more involved in making the decision that's best for them. "
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Susieq58, Since you mentioned how much you care about Wornoutmom I thought I would let everyone know that she has been doing alternative treatment and having tremendous success! As we all know, she decided not to come back to BCO due to the suppression and attempted silencing of such treatments. I would like to update everyone on her condition. I will ask her first if it is Ok to give details before I do so but I think you all would be quite surprised and relieved at the results of her recent PET scan.
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impositive - thankyou, it would be good to hear how she's going.
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Titan, I have been taking vit C infusions everyday for the last 40 days and I get a blood and urine test once a week to monitor things. I haven't had any adverse effects. I think for most (maybe not all), that vitamin C, even in high doses, is safe. At least for me, that has been the case.
Blue Dalia, You said cancer grows for 10 years before it can be diagnosed. I have heard that and repeated it also but I am wondering where that statement comes from. Does anyone know? I am wondering, how do doctors would know this? Do any of you ladies know where this idea comes from?
Chiluvr1228, I was highly stressed and very fatigued just months before my diagnosis. A doctor said it takes five things have to happen to make your genes malfunction.
1. Chemicals and toxicity
2. Bad food choices / poor nutrition
3. Poor sleep habits / inability to sleep
4. High stress levels
5. Imbalanced hormones
It makes perfect sense. I dont know about everyone else here but I met all the above criteria so I am working to rectify each point. I am taking nutrition therapy, changing my diet to include more fruits and veggies (organic when possible), eliminated personal and household chemicals as much as possible, cut my stress level way down, and am trying to manage my sleep better which in my case also includes balancing my hormones with bio-identicals. I stopped my progesterone for a couple months (because of laziness) and my inability to sleep and night sweats returned. I have again resummed the bio-pro and my sleep is getting back to the way it should be. I know it's a sticky subject but my bio-identicals are a life saver to me.
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impositive: I hear you on the bioidenticals...I'm off mine and within two weeks I was not sleeping well and having hot flashes. I spoke to my integrative physician about it today. He wants to get the results of my blood tests and then we will revisit my getting back on them. I will be getting some infusions of antioxidants as well as some oral vitamin C combined with another immune system booster. I'm also being tested for metal and chemical toxicity. I'm already on the anti cancer diet which is helping me with my energy levels. I'm still considering rads, but haven't made a final decision as yet.
Happy to hear you are doing well!
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Kaara, I just failed to go to the pharmacy to pick it up for two months in a row. It's a bit of a drive for me and I got lazy. I will NEVER do that again. I've had some pretty miserable nights. Hope all goes well with your integrative doc. I wont be without mine again. I will go underground to get it if I have to, lol.
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