Hello everyone. I know that is has been a long time since we have written anything on here, theres so much to share. Some of you that are around me may have noticed my spiral into a darker place of loneliness, fear, addiction, anger. Last year was a road I never want to travel again. After so long of pain from all the chemo drugs I had been given, I became addicted physically to dilaudid. There was no mental addiction but my body needed that drug. It's a monster drug thats 10x's stronger then morphine just to give you an idea. When my levels were high enough of this IV pain medicine, I would mentally be so numb and have no idea whats happening around me. Joe said that in those times I seemed totally coherent and able to make decisions, however I have no memory of them at all. I was told that my behavior was horrible and if I wasn't given the drug then I would get upset and yell at the staff in the cancer center and hospital. I eventually checked myself into rehab as that was the only to save myself and my marriage. It was a 7 day treatment program, I thought it would be very helpful. The PA that was there was actually a member of my church. That was weird for me and embarrassing, but he remained very positive and helpful, treated me like a person and wanted to help me so much. I made it through 3 days then left. In this facility there were people that had lots of different addiction troubles, some were addicted to alcohol so much that they would deficate in places other then the bathroom because they had no idea where they were or what was going on. There were people in there that were heroin addicted that shoot up themselves, I felt like I didn't fit in. I tried to tell Joe and the PA (which for privacy reasons i'm going to name John) that I wasn't addicted mentally and that I didn't do this to myself, the doctors kept prescribing it and the nurses kept giving it. I'm not placing blame on anyone as I know I am partly to blame. I don't really know why I let things get so bad, I think there was the issue of dying before I was ready and joe threatening me with our marriage. I put joe through so much and he was getting tired, he had to go to school and work full time while dealing with all of our children and then there was me. I wanted to be so numb and not feel, I wanted to escape this life that was getting harder and harder. In this I lost some good friends and hurt people around me. This was never my intention and I tried to make things right it was too late the relationship was already damaged. Fast forward a few months, we found out about the 4 large tumors while I was in the hospital for something else then ended up with renal failure as well, because it's me and everything happens to me. The liver is a vital organ, and my treatment plan had failed now what do we do? Joe and I made an appt. at MD Anderson in Phoenix, Arizona. They are the #1 cancer center in the counrty. I met with a specialist whom had already reviewed my files because I had sent them down prior with all my scans. We were hoping for some hope to be restored. The dr. said not to give up but that there was nothing that could be done my cancer was to advanced. That crushed me and I know it crushed Joe. We came home with the news that I would be lucky to have another year with my family. I sunk again into some depression. Here I was trying to plan my funeral, have some legal papers set up giving joe total control as to what was going to happen with my body and drafting my obituary. Wow, 30yrs old and this is what I had to do. I lost God in all of this and so joe. There was so much hate, so much anger, feelings of betrayal. Where was he? I reached out to someone I consider a friend, in fact everyone at the living water ministries. There was so much support and prayer. You see in all of the turmoil, I felt alone. I was separate from my church family a lot of that was due to me being withdrawn. There was also some rumors that had been started by someone I had never met, and one of the rumors was about me talking bad about my church family, and how people felt lied to and used. That is the other reason I stayed away, I didn't know who felt that way or not. I talked with lots of people and was assured that they never felt that they had been lied to or used. But after something like that being said it was hard to feel comfortable. I'm sure I will hear how this information is not needed and I'm stirring the pot. I assure you i'm not. It was all part of my feeling alone, and joe had been through so much and he was dealing with his PTSD growing stronger and that didn't exactly bring us closer either. I finally had to take control of my life and do something to help things get better. After I kicked the IV dilaudid and had a clear head, I went to everyone that had ever helped me in the hospital, friends, family and the staff at the cancer center and I made things right. It was so hard to go to them and say that I have no memory of things I said or did but that I was taking responsibility for my actions and though I couldn't go back and fix them I could apologize. Thankfully majority of the people forgave me, they knew the real me and the person they saw a glimpse of wasn't me at all. The next step was to find a way to extend my life. I had done a lot of research on natural medicine (I have never been one for that). I kept coming across chloraphyll. Our bodies are naturally acidic and what the chloraphyll does is lower the Ph levels in our bodies and raise the alkaline levels. From what I had read the higher the alkaline levels are, it makes it virtually impossible for disease and "itis" to grow. Basically any inflammation. So my doctor had the CT from my hospital visit that showed the tumors on my liver and wanted to do a CT after 3 doses of the new chemo drug Kadclya. I get kadcyla every 21 days so 9wks later I had another CT done and it showed that the tumors had not grown but didn't shrink either so chemo was technically working. I started to take 2tsp of chloraphyll everyday and 1.5 months later I asked for another CT and it showed that 2/4 tumors were gone and the other 2 had shrunk significantly. WOW.
My tumor marker had also gone from 78 down to an 11. So as my body was producing the cancer cells, I was making the environment impossible for those cells grow. My doctor thought it was great. When I brought the idea to her, she was objective as there are so many "claims" out there on how to beat cancer. Please don't take this information as a definate cure and stop listening to your doctors. You should always listen to your doctors advise. Because the chloraphyll is a naturally produced there is no drug interactions with taking this. I had bought myself hopefully much longer then another year. Maybe this will stop working sometime and the cancer cells will become resistant to the chloraphyll too, but for now I'll take it. Joe and I are growing much closer again, the kids are happy and wanted to do extra activities. Neither of us wanted any more commitments but that wasn't fair to the kids. We put Joey in Taekwondo which he loves. Genevieve wanted to play the violin, so I put her in suzuki. I decided that I was going to learn to play the violin too, I thought it would be something fun for her and I to do together, something that if and when I do die she will always remember. My focus has changed so much over the last year and a half. I live for my kids as crazy as they make me because I know one day it could all be over. Healthy people take life for granted, myself included. Truth is any of us can die at any time from an illness or an accident or just old age, but what are we doing while we are alive to make the difference in someone elses life? I have met some truly amazing people through this that have helped in so many ways. That is where God was the whole time, he was providing for us weather it was with food, money, wood, child care, prayer. I was just so caught up in my darkness that I lost focus of the light. With that being said, Thank you to everyone that helped me and my family in any way. I have truly been blessed and taken care of. Without everyone I don't know really where I would be at right now. Most of all I need to thank God for not giving up on me, for always making sure we had what we needed when we needed it even when I had given up on him. I know this is a long entry but there was so much to share. I love you all and am truly honored to have you all as friends. I hope that my story is one of happiness, laughter, sadness, hope and encouragement. Anyone reading this that knows someone battling cancer or even yourself share my story. Heather
