IN THE BEGINNING

This is something completely new to me. Not blogging in general, but blogging completely about myself. I really don't like to talk about myself and try to refrain from doing that as much as possible on my other blog, BUT I think maybe the time has come to tell this story.

I’ve decided to start a new blog expressly for this story. Because it’s about pain and my struggle to find ways to deal with it, I’ve decided the signature color should be my visual color of this particular pain. RED.

If you’ve found your way here, please note that this is mostly for myself. I feel a need to record this journey, which I’m seriously hoping will culminate in my being pain free and enjoying a fully functional, active life. If anything I talk about or reference can help you in the slightest, I am grateful for the opportunity, but primarily this is a self-indulgent space where I’m going to grant myself the freedom to rant and complain, and hopefully rejoice.

Let me start at the beginning. I’m a cancer survivor. I have survived the disease, but I’m not so sure I have survived the treatment. It is evident today that most, if not all, of my medical problems can, be pretty directly tied to my cancer treatment.

 
 At the time I was told I had cancer, I faced my mortality, the way I’m sure most people who are told they have a potentially fatal disease would. I was scared, incredulous, and thought ‘I am going to die’. Funny, up until that time it hadn’t really occurred to me that I was going to die, and yet life is totally and completely fatal. We are all going to die and some point in time. I suppose it’s something that most people manage to keep somewhere out in the distant future, and not necessarily their personal future. Once I came to terms with this fact, I decided that I really wasn’t ready to die just yet, and knew that I needed a positive attitude to survive. What I didn’t know, was that I needed to remain in charge of my treatment and not turn it over to the medical practitioners.

Before I get too far afield here, I want to tell you that I was ignorant of what my options were. I simply trusted the doctors and let them basically do what they pleased with regard to my treatment. It wasn’t until I was almost through radiation treatment that I realized I could actually say NO. Because this isn’t intended to be a blog about the horrors of modern medicine and what really governs how and what you will be treated with, let me simply recommend a book that everyone (not just cancer patients, because once you have been diagnosed, it must might be too late to digest all of the facts) should read. That book is ‘A Word Without Cancer-The Story of Vitamin B17’ by G. Edward Griffin. A friend sent me this book at Christmas in 2012 and it has opened my eyes to exactly how the medical community in the United States is run.

Another book (which by the way, was sent to me by the same friend) that I would highly recommend is ‘Alive and Well-One Doctor’s Experience with Nutrition in the Treatment of Cancer Patients’, by Phillip E. Binzel, Jr., M.D.

It’s important to know there are options. It’s important to remember that doctors call what they do ‘PRACTICING’. Know the facts. Check out the alternative. Find out what you can honestly expect before you allow someone to practice on your body.

OK, now we have that out of the way. I had cancer. I suffered traditional treatment for cancer. Surgery, Radiation and Chemotherapy. I was declared cancer free by my oncologist two years, and then again five years after my treatment. For him and the other doctors involved (Radiation and Chemo) I was considered a great success story. For me it was just the beginning.

I am grateful to be cancer free, but now I have to find a way to rid myself of the after effects of cancer treatment. I only wish I had known that there was a better way.

NEXT POST – Side-effects and be happy you’re alive. Learn to live with it.