Tag Archives: Blogs

The Myth of the Wellness Warrior

Please note, this is Part One of a series. Click here to jump to Part Two or follow the link at the end of this post. Part Two contains some very important information that greatly expands upon some of what is raised here.

Somehow I managed to miss the name Candice-Marie Fox when I was going through earlier research on foods that are claimed to cure cancer, of which her pineapple diet ranks as one of the more ludicrous. Through the grapevine, I learned of this diet yesterday and immediately I wanted to find out if there was anything plausible about it. Certainly, pineapple is healthy to eat and it is often used for digestive issues due to its enzymatic activity, so I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. Of course, I did not expect that there would be an actual cure in there, but maybe I could ascertain some actual benefits to the diet that transcended my initial skepticism. I was excited about this possibility; less so about discovering one more person preparing to cash in on a faux cure.

Pineapple is good for you.

A quick Google search brought up hundreds of articles online about how this woman, Candice-Marie Fox, a former model (always in the lead of the story), beat “Stage 3” or “Stage 4” (depending on the article) thyroid cancer by “ditching her husband” and eating a diet dominated by pineapple and other fruits. As is often the case in this sort of story, even as it is translated into multiple languages, the text is almost identical from web site to web site. And most of those articles can be traced back to a source in that British rag called the Daily Mail — not exactly a solid, investigative news source.

A few other “news” outlets picked the story up. It makes great click bait, after all. But fascinatingly, these actual news stories manage to get a whole bunch of facts wrong. Which is not surprising, as the former model herself seems to trip over her own facts many times, even in interviews on other web sites after her celebrity began to grow.

Continue reading The Myth of the Wellness Warrior

The Chemo Diaries: Summer Maintenance

One of the fun things about chemotherapy is the surprise side effects that pop up, differing from one round to the next. For the most part, after you’ve had a few rounds, you know what to expect in broad terms. Some issues get cumulatively more pronounced, others perhaps seem less so. But the element of surprise is always there with something.

When I switched from the three drug infusion that was designed to beat the cancer cells with a sledge hammer, to a single drug infusion that is basically intended to keep tapping at those cells in a more gentle fashion, I noticed a huge difference in how I felt during the critical week that followed. After six rounds of the hard stuff, it had been really getting to me. My body, as healthy as it otherwise is, was feeling a bit worse for wear. I was exhausted. I felt like I had a brain cloud. Then suddenly, after the maintenance infusion cycles began, it was like a weight had been lifted. It wasn’t necessary for me to take my anti-nausea meds anymore. I could think (relatively) more clearly.

There were still side effects, though. The chemo still made me tired, still had smaller versions of the same things that had been bothering me before. Now my feet were puffy, then it would be something else. Another cycle or so in and some of the issues I had been so happy to avoid seemed to come back again, perhaps in a lighter dose, and I spent a couple weeks with some truly odd gastrointestinal issues before going in for another in my string of exciting CT scans. Continue reading The Chemo Diaries: Summer Maintenance

Clip Show: Cancer Edition 2

Welcome to another Clip Show! Here are some things that were lingering in open tabs for a while that I intended to use or share, but haven’t found a proper post within which to do so. I encourage you to click the links and explore, watch the videos here and enjoy. Hopefully there is something for everyone.

I don’t normally reference Fox News as a source of reason, but here is a great interview with actress Maura Tierney discussing her experience with chemotherapy:

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/09/26/er-star-maura-tierney-debunks-chemo-myths-after-breast-cancer/

Continue reading Clip Show: Cancer Edition 2

Why I Kept My Cancer Private

In this age of social media, some people might question why I kept quiet about my cancer treatment for as long as I did. There were some very simple reasons for me — in spite of the fact that I was writing a blog about it the whole time. (If you are learning about my experience for the first time, that link is a good place to start reading after you are done here.) Essentially, however, I wanted to keep my personal life separate from what I felt might otherwise define me in the eyes of others. This was a short-term issue, I realized, because at some point the nature of living with an inoperable cancer is that it does define much of a patient’s life, regardless of how much one might prefer otherwise. So I decided to try the slow roll out of information and, to be quite honest, it has served me well (and I also think it has been good for many of the people in my life, too).

When I received my initial diagnosis, there were certain people, mainly family members, who already knew that I had some health issues that were being investigated. In addition to my immediate family, there were also my employers and maybe one or two other people who had to be in the loop, and I knew I would tell these people right away when I had all the information.

As part of my research, before I had any solid diagnosis, I had already gone through pretty much every possible scenario in my head and followed up online to gather information on what any potential diagnosis would mean. Along the way, I also discovered that
Continue reading Why I Kept My Cancer Private

Integrative Medicine, Positive Care and Negative Ramifications

If we, as a society, could allocate just an additional $120 million each year toward research and development of new cancer treatments, that would seem like a great idea. Because there is a lot of money out there already directed at existing therapies, running clinical trials of proven concepts and supporting the refinement of effective treatments already in existence, it also seems like a great idea to take this $120 million and direct it toward new concepts and approaches that are not yet mainstreamed into Western Medicine. This is the reason, I suspect, that over the past twenty years or so, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has morphed into Integrative Medicine and has been granted enormous research subsidies and acceptance within many mainstream health institutions. Allocating even a mere $120 million is a huge responsibility, so it also seems like it would be a great idea to carefully vet the areas on which the funding will be spent.

Here is some amazing news: the actual amount of government funding for research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2015 and 2016 has reached $369 and $378 million annually, according to the National Institute of Health. This should be a Golden Age of Medical Advancement! Sizable annual funding being made available outside of the mainstream of modern medicine must be the answer to why there has been no definitive Cancer Cure.

Only it isn’t. And the reason is Continue reading Integrative Medicine, Positive Care and Negative Ramifications

Negativity is Positively Not in Your Best Interest

I had a few other titles for this post sliding around in my brain. After getting up and down to move the cat out of my daughter’s bedroom a few times, this is the only one that had stuck, so I’m going to go with it in spite of the cheesy wordplay. Partly, that is because it is also an accurate summation of my perspective.

Today is November 7th, 2014. It’s a Friday. And it is a good day.

Yesterday, after three-odd months of waiting and questions and test after test, I finally received a diagnosis from  my doctor regarding why I haven’t been feeling precisely top-drawer recently. It turns out that, in general terms, I have Stage 4 Lung Cancer. More specifically, I have Adenocarcinoma, which is a non-small cell form of lung cancer, and it has spread from the 3 odd centimeter mass in my left lung to a few lymph nodes and eventually down to my hip bone. And I am so thankful to have this diagnosis. Not because I am pleased to “have cancer,” which would be kind of perverse, but because now I know what I am dealing with and I can get on with it.
Continue reading Negativity is Positively Not in Your Best Interest

Fear Mongering: It’s Just Bad For You

As an inaugural post, although I think it is pretty obvious, it never hurts to point out that buying into Fear Mongering (as once popularized by the Bush-Cheney Years, but readily in use, well, forever and counting) is bad for you. It’s unhealthy to believe every scary headline on Fox News, and just as bad for you to believe every frightening claim made by homeopathic “medical practitioners” to scare you away from unnecessary medication or surgery… The fact is, people use hyperbole to sell you whatever they want, and lately it has become more aggressive than ever across all media. This is partly because of the blogosphere — truthfully, the level of misinformation out there is growing exponentially every day — AND WILL SOON CAUSE ALL KNOWN INFORMATION SYSTEMS TO COLLAPSE UNDER THE VIRTUAL WEIGHT OF IT ALL. Well, maybe not the part in bold, but there certainly is something there to be concerned with, and probably a little afraid of, until we can all take a breath and reason things out.