Monday club lol

pipers_dream

Well Jodi, it's alternative medicine so I'm stepping out in faith but I strongly believe that 90% of your cure depends on the faith you place in it, and I'm placing mine on this.  The first thing the nature doc has me doing is the ketogenic diet. I'm taking antibiotics for a longstanding gum infection that I've had for years--I almost didn't believe it b/c the dentist said it was nothing and i thought I was going to have to live with it, but it's clearing up.  That way my immune system can go to work on the tumor instead of the gum infection.  He has me on parasite meds--same reason--give the immune system a chance. (I've been overseas many times and got deathly ill in Egypt and Venezuela!)   Homeopathic meds.  Still not sure what I believe about those but I've had positive experiences with them in the past and for things the regular docs couldn't or wouldn't fix.  I also take curcumin, DIM, iodine, selenium, various vitamins, and of course iron pills for the blood count.  Looking into getting some sulforaphane--studies are showing that it can take out stem cells--chemo can't get at those and they are the biggest reason cancer can come back bigger and badder after you're supposedly cured.  Even if you guys aren't into alternatives and do chemo, you might want to look into that.  Also, I'm sleeping just as much as I want to--again want to give the immune system a fighting chance.  I told nature doc that I know he can't guarantee that he can cure me but I do believe he can help me strengthen my body enough to help fight this off.  He visibly relaxed at that as he realized that I "get it"  about holistic medicine.  

I know what you mean about your girls being different from each other--my two are also, but at 19 and 21, they get along remarkably well.  It's so much fun to see them together.  I thought I never wanted them to grow up, but seeing them do that has been such a joy.  

juneping

piper - i also am skipping chemo, i am talking to an alternative doc who didn't object to chemo but i told him i wasn't going to and he supported me. how did you find the nature doc? i want to find one as well. but since i have this alt doc so i don't know if i can afford that many diff docs.

pipers_dream

Well Jodi, it's alternative medicine so I'm stepping out in faith but I strongly believe that 90% of your cure depends on the faith you place in it, and I'm placing mine on this.  The first thing the nature doc has me doing is the ketogenic diet. I'm taking antibiotics for a longstanding gum infection that I've had for years--I almost didn't believe it b/c the dentist said it was nothing and i thought I was going to have to live with it, but it's clearing up.  That way my immune system can go to work on the tumor instead of the gum infection.  He has me on parasite meds--same reason--give the immune system a chance. (I've been overseas many times and got deathly ill in Egypt and Venezuela!)   Homeopathic meds.  Still not sure what I believe about those but I've had positive experiences with them in the past and for things the regular docs couldn't or wouldn't fix.  I also take curcumin, DIM, iodine, selenium, various vitamins, and of course iron pills for the blood count.  Looking into getting some sulforaphane--studies are showing that it can take out stem cells--chemo can't get at those and they are the biggest reason cancer can come back bigger and badder after you're supposedly cured.  Even if you guys aren't into alternatives and do chemo, you might want to look into that.  Also, I'm sleeping just as much as I want to--again want to give the immune system a fighting chance.  I told nature doc that I know he can't guarantee that he can cure me but I do believe he can help me strengthen my body enough to help fight this off.  He visibly relaxed at that as he realized that I "get it"  about holistic medicine.  

I know what you mean about your girls being different from each other--my two are also, but at 19 and 21, they get along remarkably well.  It's so much fun to see them together.  I thought I never wanted them to grow up, but seeing them do that has been such a joy.  

RedReading

Hello ladies. I'm baaaaaaack. (as Arnie would say).

First - an update. Got home from work on Friday 17th at about 5pm and isn't there a message from the MO saying I had an appt at 9am Monday. Of course, the Cancer Centre is closed so I had almost no way to contact her and say I'll be on vacation. I did leave a message with the family history lady (her's was the only Ext # I knew), so hopefully she didn't think I was just blowing her off.

Second - Vacation. I had lovely time, my DH, not so much! Showed up at the airport on Saturday at 4am and we showed our passports and checked our luggage when they realized his passport had expired. They were very calm - sir, you need to go home and get the right passport, ma'am, you need to get on the plane because your luggage is already there. We will send your husband on the next plane. Well of course he never found it, so now he has to wait until Monday and go to emergency immigration to get a new passport. But first - he has to find his birth certificate - guess what? Can't find that either. Probably with his passport, which he used when he went to Tennessee golfing in April. So the upshot was, $475 for a flight in, $230 for an emergency passport and $50 for an emergency birth certificate. All of which depended on each other and he needed guarantors for everything. Our dentist guaranteed him for the birth certificate, our neighbours for the passport and his old friend verified the passport photo and all of them called in to the appropriate office and scanned their approvals so he could join me.

Tuesday night at 9:40pm his plane touched down and I was waiting when he walked out of the airport. Yay - he had finally arrived.

While I waited for him for 4 days, I took archery lessons (probably would have been easier if I'd had a mastectomy - I know, very dark sense of humour), walked the beach a lot and made friends with every child under the age of 13 on the resort. As we were getting on the plane to come home, one little girl asked her dad if it was okay if they took me home with them. lol

Once he arrived, we walked on the beach a lot, went to a farmers market, took a horse and buggy ride and partied every night like we were 20. O my aching head.

Third - welcome to KLJ - o dear, it was on the last page so if I got the initials wrong, sorry. We have all felt that empty void inside that just seems to leave us with emotions we aren't used to feeling and reactions to things that are alien to our normal sense of wellbeing. I am sorry you are facing this, but glad you found us! We have shared our journey since the beginning and we have also shared advice, comfort and happy moments. Some recipes, some alternate med information, some serious meltdowns and some serious joy. Pipers' dancing made me grin and Jodi's facebook page made me happy too. We each get through this our own way as we are all so different.

Damn my screen is jumping better post and then finish what I was saying. (((hugs)))

juneping

red - i am glad you had a good time ...lol @ your husband, sounds a lot like my ex.

i am starting my leave of absence....so i am relaxing at home now. just went for a work-out session and took a shower. i also went to the farmers market this morning, sooooo darn cold. i couldn't feel my fingers towards the end which was less than 15 minutes.

RedReading

Ok, so stable screen now, yay!

It seems to me that back on page 2 or something I said that I was seriously considering saying no to chemo and got questioned on why I would do that. Now I see I am not the only one proceeding with caution. June - you are skipping chemo too and Pipers is not even having the surgery yet. Jodi, your bc is a special case because they have to move fast in order to avoid complications, but it is nice to see that I am not alone in questioning the docs about chemo and rads. Regarding the alternative docs, nature docs etc, just so you know that I do not disapprove of alternative meds, I need to tell you a small story.

My work will pay for any course we want to take, provided we pass it, if not, we pay. So I signed up for an Environmental Citizen course and a Gardening course. 2 weeks in, it was obvious that I could not handle the workload, so I made a deal with my disabled daughter. If you take the gardening course for me, I will buy you a laptop. Failing the course would cost me $380 plus a ton of embarrassment, the laptop would cost $449. To me it was a good deal. I aced Environmental while my DD did the same with Gardening. Then she went on to take a diploma course in herbology and then one in Reiki and another in Reiki and several in medicinal crystals.

Bottom line is, even though I say seek both sides of any medical alternative, I never am without my selenite heart, my citrine and my hematite. When I had my op I was holding my selenite heart as I was wheeled in and I panicked, I can't put it on a shelf, it will be left behind, then my wonderful nurse taped it to my ankle under my sock. I don't think I am terribly superstitious, yet my DD has been encouraging me to always have my 'healing' crystals with me, and they do seem to make me feel better. So yes, I am a total fraud about alternative therapies. It just took me a little time to remember that I too am doing something the major medical community would pooh pooh.

Love you all of you.

RedReading

Jodi, I love your facebook page - I am now a follower!. You are beautiful both with and without hair and your little girls are so precious. I agree about the cold - booo. I will be starting a workout regimen with the University soon. They offer it free to cancer patients and tailor it to what you are capable of at any given time. I'm looking forward to it!

Keep relaxing during your LOA. It is the best thing you can do for your body, I think. Gives it time to fight for you. I know Pipers would agree.

Hugs'n'kisses

juneping

red - chemo is a very personal choice and i read the book i mentioned previously. it helped me to make my decision. chemo is effective when the cancer is aggressive. they're not that effective for er/pr +...so i've read. i am no doctor so my knowledge is limited. so i can only speak for myself how much that i know.

i went thru a very stressful or very unhappy stage in my life from 06 to 11, 6 long years. i think my body at the time created a very "nice" environment for my BC to grow. i was never into organic or exercise and now i am 180 degree. btw, i am sipping  a glass of red that i bought at the farmers market....i am having a good time... i learn to be happy about little joy that life brings...

RedReading

Hi June, I totally get individual situations and individual choice. It's why I made that decision too. Also I am ER/PR+,HER2-, so it probably wouldn't do me any good either.

So sorry for the pain of those 6 years. I would wish it away if I could, as it is, I can only pray that your mind stores it away where it can't hurt you.

I'm having an after dinner bottle of beer - not from the market. lol. Cheers!

juneping

red - i like wine...it relaxes me and i also enjoy the depth of taste in it. sigh, now i have to really watch how much i drink. i wasn't a heavy drinker so the transition isn't so hard.

but i also enjoy champagne a lot and now i really can't drink too much of it. bc i can't stop at one...hahaha

how's everyone doing? 

RedReading

Hi June, I'm good. You said you were drinking less wine and champagne. Is this because of the alternative med route or diet or what? Just wondering, you don't have to say.

Have a great evening everyone.

juneping

red - 

it's more about diet. the way i understand is cancer cells live on glucose which produce when we eat sugar and carb. but simple sugar can jack up the insulin level very fast but complex sugar (whole grain, fruits) take much longer for our bodies to digest. and also sugar can turn our bodies into acidic, and cancer cells love that acidic body. so we should do our best to maintain our bodies on the alkaline side. 

but the philosophy of living life is moderation...we can't live our lives not eating something we enjoy. life becomes boring...

before my DX, i didn't really know nor care about this kind of things and now i know more and there's reason ppl eat healthy and those raw milk movement. for us ER/PR positives, i personally think we should avoid those regular beef from the supermarket. if you find those grass fed beef, do enjoy. cow dairy are not good for us, unless they're organic / grass fed. the US and Canada still allow those hormones injected into cows but EU already banned those hormones, bc they knew they're not good for cows and human consumption. nowadays, so many women have BC with no family history, there must be some environmental reasons to it. i am not a specialist but i am thinking it's food and a happy mental state can fight this.

if you are interested, pls check out canceractive.com it really tells you more about cancer.

another book is "real food, what to eat and why" by nina planck. it's not about cancer but about real food. how industrialization changed the way we live, eat and how food has been evolved since then. it's an interesting read. nina is a daughter of a professor who became a farmer later in life. the book is so wonderful. i highly recommend it. it just gives us all the knowledge we need to know about food.

RedReading

Thanks June, I'm going to look up that book. Maybe I can get it on my kobo or kindle. I carry that with me always. 

I have done a lot of research on hormone injection and it's not good for us, I realize that. It wasn't really industrialization that started it though. Believe it or not it was WW2. All the men went off to war, women went to work, and there were very few people left to farm. When the men came home, there was a food crisis in the US and Canada. Until a scientist tried hormones as a temporary measure. It worked, producing bigger chickens and cows with more meat on them. It was supposed to be discontinued but then the baby boom came along and we needed even more meat. About this time full blown industrialization came into play. The machinery for processing food was all made for bigger chickens and bigger cows. They tried to go backwards about a decade ago. Eliminated hormones and got smaller chickens - 5-6 lbs instead of 8-9 lbs. But the machinery couldn't handle it - it was a disaster. Parts that shouldn't be in our diet suddenly were because the tools to grab a chicken were never made to grab a small chicken and strip it etc. Now we need to make the machinery smaller. Our countries have too many people now to have everyone eating free range anything. We don't have the grazing space, and what we do have has been given over to condos and farmers are being paid to grow nothing. It rots my socks!

I'm glad you've found a source for good food. I have too.

About the drinking, I'm not going to fuss. I rarely do moderation on anything. Kind of a full speed ahead kind of girl. I did tell my doc that I like my beer, so she can adjust the meds accordingly. 

Anyway, thanks again for the book reference. 

Hugs'n'kisses 

Deb 

juneping

red - oh thanks for the info...that's very informative. i didn't read anything mentioned about WWII. and it totally made sense.

but no kidding, the chicken we see at regular supermarket and the one we get from farmers market are so different in price range. organic eggs are like 6 bucks a dozen while at super market it's 1.99 or 2.99 a dozen?? i used to spend less than 30/week on grocery and now i spent about 100/wk... but i cook a lot more now than before. i ate out a lot....

RedReading

That's good for you tho June. My DD agrees that a better diet would improve her life too but she can't afford it and hates charity.

Good news for me tho. No chemo is a definate. Got approved by my doc today. Yay. It's nice to know that they are on board with me. 

My oncotype came back 28 so I'm in the grey area. She's willing to go for that, so long as I start an exercise program and see a nutritionist. 

Yippee!!!! Happy dance!!

juneping

red- that's good news!! It's always encouraging to have doc on board with you. I've read some doc got mad if you don't listen to them.

I also had my onco score tested...also in grey zone. I am glad it's not a 50 something score...

Nutritionist is a good way to go. 

You can check out ewg.org that tells you what kind of food you have to get organic and what kind is not. This way we can save a lot of money on food. 

RedReading

Thanks June. I'll check it out. :-)

pipers_dream

Hey ladies, I was so afraid you all would think I'm nuts and instead you're looking at these things too.  I'm so glad--even if you go full conventional you'll still be healthier in the long run with complementary therapies.  I'm doing everything my naturopath has told me to do and the whole thing is so different from what you would expect of a regular doctor--for one thing he's not all that interested in the tumor.  He's more interested in my biological terrain--that is my health in general and esp my immune system, which I'll need to fight off the cancer.  He also sent me to a biological dentist to be evaluated and that was interesting.  The dentist said that treating cancer naturally is like teasing a worm out of the ground--you can't rush the process.  He also said that your immune system is like a spending acct that you have and you want to be careful how you spend your immune dollars--even little things like not flossing everyday can nickel and dime you to death b/c if your gums bleed when you floss you're putting bacteria into your bloodstream which your immune system then has to deal with.  I'm horrible at routines so all this is new to me and I'm doing nothing but routines these days and lots of pills and vitamins.  Nature doc tested me for food allergies and the only thing completely off limits is peanuts--as long as I have cancer that is.  I was surprised but I only have a little trouble with wheat and dairy.  

June, if you want a good rule of thumb about organic, I've read that if you have to limit it, get organic meat--it's way better for you than conventional and the CLA in grassfed beef is a cancer fighter, but grainfed beef is actually carcinogenic.  Then dairy products, and veggies last.  If I feel well enough this summer I want a garden b/c I have 2 acres here.  I would even like a dairy cow but I'm out of town too much--I've thought of buying one and giving it to a needy family and then getting some milk from them.  I'm thinking.

Oh and I'm not drinking.  For one thing alcohol has carbs and I'm strict keto and for another, women with ILC aren't supposed to drink alcohol ever again.  I never have been much of a drinker, but that still bites--I do like a social drink every now and then.  I probably will have an occasional drink when this is all over.  

And now, this is funny (and kind of gross) but I have a diseased toenail--have a fungus in it and have tried every remedy under the sun short of going to the doc and paying $700 for some pills that whack out your liver.  It's going away!  Growing out I mean.  I am using that visualization to imagine that it's my cancer disappearing--fungi and cancer share many similarities.   Oh and June, I liked your website link.  Thank you for that.  

Red, that's a funny story about your trip.  That could have happened to me I swear.  Poor hubby, but of course his mind is so much on what's happening with you that he forgot.

juneping

piper - lol at keeping a cow. i am very careful about eating cow products, it's just not safe unless i know where it's coming from.

does your insurance cover your naturopath?? i want to look into it later. since now i have an alternative doc and i can't afford a naturopath right now.

RedReading

Hi, everyone, happy Saturday. June, I found your website, very nice - I am now a follower! You have a nice way with words and I was happy with the positive direction your posts are taking. I also read that article you told me about on ewg.org? I don't recall the web name properly. Sorry. It was less informative. It only said here's good stuff, here's bad stuff. It didn't explain, to my satisfaction, why it had divided the fruits and veggies that way. I'll keep researching tho, thanks for the tip.

Pipers, there is no right or wrong way to approach bc. Please don't feel that you can't chat with us about your journey as it has obviously sparked both June and I to look into alternative therapies more carefully. I have found a family farm nearby that has grass fed beef, which is great cuz I loves me my beef! lol. They also have free range chickens. Now I just need to find out where they got their grass seed and what kind of food their chickens are eating. Each time I think I have this decided my son asks another question. He'll say, okay mom, so they are grass fed - was the grass originally a variety that is GMO or hormone laden? Then it's back to the research  and  I'm back on the computer again. He is a fish farmer specializing in Talapia, so he has done all kinds of research on healthy water, food and energy consumption.

My daughter is a little further out there, she's what I would call a kitchen witch. She grows all of her own herbs, most of her own veggies and does it all on a little plot of land that is about 8'x10' that she calls her backyard. She also believes in almost all things pagan and a lot of things conventional. She believes in God, but tends toward Gaia, she believes in spirituality rather than religion, she meditates and does yoga. The pagan part comes up at the funniest times, like today, when I loaned her my car to do some running around this afternoon. Last thing she said as she dropped me back at my place was Happy Imbolc Eve. O and mom, today is the best day of the year to plant seeds if you intend to do that. Of course I do. So I will take her advice and plant my seeds this afternoon. She is also a board certified nurse, has an herbology degree and is a practicing Reiki healer and she is disabled.

It's funny, I'm an accountant and my hubby was a consultant for Jeep and yet we managed to raise another accountant, a beautiful girl who has her hands totally full looking after an Autistic son, a stay at home mom, a totally holistic healer and a fish farmer. Who would have thought it. Life is strange sometimes.

Have a great day!

Deb

juneping

red - oh thanks for the compliments on my blog.

wow, your children ask some very good questions...i never thought about those all this time.

a friend of mine is also like your daughter, she grows some veggi in her own back yard. that's some dedication there that I don't have. lol. she said go visit her in the summer time then she'll made me some salads. i love her cooking.

and tell us how the plant go.

pipers_dream

June, I wanted to speak to something you said earlier about having a major amount of stress from '06 to '11.  I can totally relate to that.  I read somewhere that just being abandoned by a long time partner can raise your chances of getting cx in 2 years by 50% and that's exactly what kicked mine off.  I had had almost 20 years of mostly a trouble free life with a partner that I mainly got along well with.  We had 2 girls and I stayed home to raise them and homeschool them and was happy.  Then we went on a RTW trip from '06 to '07 and one year after we got back and 3 days after xmas he came out gay.  I did not see that one coming but I dealt with it well at the time. This was less than a month after I got my first real job in years as a teaching asst.  He moved out on Valentine's Day--(he had such an impeccable sense of timing!)  Around that same time a man started to stalk me--a random stranger off the street--he even showed up at my house at 3:00 am one night.  Then a week after the wuzband moved out, I got knifed at school by one of the girls--wasn't serious and I didn't take it all that seriously at the time.  Skip ahead a few months and a new co-worker started  working with us and almost immediately went on the warpath, though I had been kind to her.  Every time I turned around she was in the boss's office, saying lord knows what, but I noticed a huge change in the way my boss was treating me and I was trying to get promoted, as I had cert in teaching, but that was out of the question now and I couldn't even get a good reference.  Couple of years later got a Korean student who hated us and everything about America--that ended badly.  My beloved grandmother died and we realized quickly that it was g-ma taking care of mom, not the other way around.  Had to move mom and sell all of her stuff in the country--huge auction--looking feverishly for a nursing home--so much stuff to go through--the a/c was whacked at her house one night when I was working but I had to keep going--almost passed out from the heat.  Then just when we thought things couldn't get worse, we found out mom had advanced cancer and she was gone in two weeks.  No time to recover--started a new job Monday after the funeral.  Loved my new job and the teacher I worked with and things improved considerably but I was still a TA.  So I had about a year of respite and I'm glad I had that job--it got me unstuck and much more confident in my teaching skills. Even found a lover. Then it all started again this summer--good stuff but still stress--got a teaching job but had to move 2-1/2 hours away to take it--got rid of the lover--bought a house, moved in, went straight from there to the camp I manage and then as soon as I got back, started right in teaching.  First year teacher. . . and then . . . cancer. And you guys know that cancer adds a huge layer of stress in itself.   And yet I'm proud that I'm still sane!  

If you all managed to read thru all that, and I didn't expect you to, you will realize that there's nothing there that's horrible and terrible--just terribly stressful.  And one thing I noticed is that as each new thing piled on, it would feel much worse b/c I hadn't recovered from the first one.  It's why I dealt with the divorce much better than the Korean girl throwing me under a bus or why my co-workers thought I was eerily calm about the knifing incident but the lying jackass of a coworker wigged me out.  One thing I will say that helped more than anything though is that I discovered gratitude--as bad as things looked at times, and during the worst of it, things were still better than 90% good and besides the mean coworker, almost everyone at work still liked me. (and they can't stand her!)   I do think the biggest mistake I made was not working to manage stress better--ate too much sugar which made it worse, and should have seen nature doc right after mom died to get my adrenals built up--they are still whacked from all that.  

Red, I love hearing about your family and esp your dd the kitchen witch.  LOL at that, but I love that image--it's the one I'd like to have of myself.  I do some of that stuff--make my own bug bite salve every summer and finding it handy for massaging my breasts now.  Your family just sounds really neat.  I ordered my garden seeds yesterday from a neat little company in Missouri called Baker's Creek Heirloom Seeds.  They have some really interesting varieties and I'm looking forward to trying the ruffled tomatoes.  I ordered a big round bale of hay for my garden spot too--if you mulch really deeply with hay or straw you don't have to dig or water nearly as much--it's a huge labor saver and you can keep things going longer in the heat of summer or the frosts of fall.  May get some chickens too lol.  Waiting on the cow for now, but I have the land for a small one.  I have 3 cherry trees in my yard and some grapes that need to be pruned back.  Looking forward to spring as I look out on all the snow today.  

juneping

agreed that i also like reading red's family images...very calm and loving.

piper - wow, that's a lot of events to handle, i hope it's the beginning of the calmness. there's a forum i visited, some singles in the 30s were complaining about being alone and single. i felt feeling lonely is really not the worst thing in life. now i look at life very differently. you know what i thought after reading your incidents and also reflected mine, its a scene in a movie Iron Man...one scene the robot of the main character was going thru so many motions and saved lives blah blah, the moment he slowed down, he (the robot not the human) was hit by a coming train. i meant BC is that coming train. lol.

i like jodi's siggi, just keep swimming. 

RedReading

http://m.lef.org/magazine/mag2011/oct2011_The-Silent-Epidemic-of-Iodine-Deficiency_01.htm

http://www.breastcancerchoices.org/iodine.html

OK so my little alternative therapy ladies. Lol!  my DD sent me these two sites about iodine and breast cancer. Not too long a read. I think I'll start taking iodine supplements and augment with food. 

Ttyl

juneping

red - do you sometimes pop to that alternative subforum? i do sometimes and the info are very helpful. i've read a few things and of course it's not conventional so the info can be conflicting. and btw, there's a lady there is going to canada for a hyperthermia treatment, she's stage 4 (can't remember for sure...). and it seems like medical field in europe has been having this treatment for a while, but it's also not exactly conventional but conjunct to chemo and radiation. i have a gut feeling, insurance does not cover that at all.

that vit E can fuel tumors (it's more about lung cancer when i read the article)...if you want, i'll look for the link and post it here. so i panicked and decided to not take supplements on a daily basis except vit D and calcium and omega 3. i also read vit D is another key element. i had blood work done last feb and i was vit D deficient. so it makes sense to me. apparently the sun bath we get the vit D is still different from food. so sometimes i go out for a short time, i go without sun block now.

and iodine seems like a key element to BC whenever i visit Dr. Google. i read in some chinese website that recommended seeweed so i bought some organic seaweed in flakes form (rich in iodine) to put into my food whenever i remember. it's salty and tasty...i like it a lot. the website selling it said not to take it on a daily basis, not sure why. the website is from canada. i don't know, i have some unexplainable faith in Canadian sites. if you're interested, i'll post the link. 

RedReading

Absolutely! And yes I do pop over to the alternative website. I'm lucky cuz my DD is a nurse so she can give me the other side too. She actually gave me those two websites on iodine that I posted. Said, Mom it can't hurt you and it could help a lot, so I'm going for it.

juneping

this is the link i got my seaweed. 

https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/seaweed/seaweed....

oops, i kept thinking it's canadian site but it's actually from the NW (oregan)...

pipers_dream

I take the iodine but be sure to get selenium too--it's a co-factor to help absorb it and keep it from blowing out your thyroid, if I understand that correctly.  In fact, if you get the iodine pills, be sure to read the BC choices iodine protocol--I take all the nutrients recommended there.  I can't help but feel that if I'd known about this sooner and gotten on the iodine, I wouldn't be in this spot.  But then I was just blaming it on the stress, was I not?  LOL.  Also June, not sure about the vit E but my nature doc has me on it and it's the real thing--I've heard the artificial vit E isn't good for you--maybe that's the difference?  

I've been looking into hyperthermia tx too--they do that in Germany also.  Might be worth a medical tourist visit eh?  I'll try the other stuff first.  Supposedly they put you into a 105 deg artificial fever for 2 hours while watching you closely and then bring you slowly down.  Sounds like it could be a very long 2 hours!  I'll bet you feel great afterwards though.    

juneping

piper - you are absolutely right. But I don't know what is real and what's synthetic. So I just focus on food. I cut back a lot on supplements bc my friend was recommending a whole regime and it's too much for me. I felt like the whole day my life was revolving around it lol. 

Your naturopath sounds very good and on top of things. I like her already 

juneping

hi girls,

just got back from sloan, the oncologist pretty much offered me the same treatment plan, chemo + radiation + hormonal therapies. but i decided to go with tamox and she asked if i was going to regret. she said the life expectancy right now is 80. i sort of laughed bc i hardly know anyone IRL in their 80s are physically independent and self sufficient. and then she asked if i exercise and suggested i should do 3-4 hours a week and also suggested i consult an integrative doc which sloan offers. i was quite surprised. 

i did ask about the hyperthermic and she said it's still in trial period and for late stage patients. she pretty much told me it's not a standard at sloan or even in the US. i felt she really knows what she's talking. i mentioned the other onco was going to do another pet scan on me and she said she's not going to do so, the radiation is going to do more harm than good especially right now everything (cancer) is microscopic. so she's my onco now.