ECHO?

Sitting in the waiting room at the Dr's office - double checking to make sure I don't have a "Mitral Valve Prolapse" - sounds hot!
Great doc here in Bev Hills; very thorough and considerate. Got all the blood test results back and everything is normal except HDL Cholesterol which is low...fortunately you bring up HDL by doing cardio, so that's easy. Only prob is I'm not realy working out at all right now to allow the body all the available energy/reparative resources for healing...must get back on the rebounder! I'm becoming quite the multi-tasker of late - many, many things to update you on blog!

Don't forget the fat!

I'm theorizing that the pain under the right shoulder blade was somehow related to a backup of bile in the liver/gb as a result of forgetting to add in the daily amount of flax oil. Outside of the flax oil I'm not taking in any other fat right now, so it becomes very important to incorporate it daily to avoid that painful congestion in the gall bladder. I also don't want to encourage the body to hoard fat because it doesn't feel it's getting enough through the daily intake.

Moving Thoughts

It's always a little surprising to me when I have "normal" bowel movements these days. Given that I'm up to three coffee enemas daily, I wouldn't expect to have much activity outside of those times when I'm having my "coffee break." I think that the sheer volume of food and juices I'm taking in at this point are more than adequate and contributing not only to a greater sense of well-being but also to increased peristaltic activity. My weight is slowly coming back (I think I was down as low as I've ever been for a while there) and that's been a reassuring development. I'm guessing that as the body normalizes and heals it begins to rebuild and reestablish the setpoint. It certainly has shifted around a bit over the last few months, but I'm feeling very good about things right now.

Simplify

I realized what is so appealing about the Gerson therapy today: the utter simplicity of it...yes, there's 13 daily juices, and yes, there is constantly something to be prepped, cleaned, juiced, enema'd, eaten, swallowed, injected, boiled, cooked...but, looking at the list of foods that I've been eating for the last two months it dawned on me that I love not having to think about what I'm doing in that aspect of my life (and many aspects I suppose!) - I know what I have to eat and drink and do and I just DO IT. Whatever it takes I get it done. I'm going to go through my belongings again and prioritize what I really need out from what I kinda sorta like having around and see if I can't get rid of or give away another big chunk of belongings in an effort to simplify. I remember (vaguely) a saying that summed it up nicely, something along the lines of "be careful of being posessed by your posessions.". That is definitely not it; I need to look that one up if I can find it. I need to get back to cleaning this junkyard up. I need to simplify.

Done

Blood drawn, good to go. Never have liked needles, always have to turn away for the poke and drain...it will be interesting to have to incorporate the daily injection of liver support/B12. Like anything else I'm sure it's a matter of getting used to it...can't be all bad right? (The B12 will probably be a welcome addition I'd imagine - can't be getting too much from what I'm eating.). Need to post the current diet and schedule up soon.

Wow

Walking down to get my comprehensive blood panel done for profiling by the Gerson clinic (Tijuana) and I'm just hacking up gobs of mucous. I'd imagine this is from not eating yet today (fasting blood baseline), but could also be from the Country Baskets herbs. More on that later.

Staged

I'd like to at some point talk about what stage I'm in with all this - the diagnosis was fairly recent as far as that goes - July 20th is what's written on the diagnosis paper I have. I need to detail out the discussions with the PA who biopsied the mole, the oncologist who was scheduled to do the wide excision/sentinel lymph node biopsy, and the doctor of dermatology who the PA works for. Very interesting conversations all, but the same themes showing up over and over again...nutrition shocker to come. Pretty depressing when I think about those talks actually; no one should have to ever go through that. I'll get to the psychology of this whole process in short order as well. People should know or have some sense of what to expect when they or a loved one is faced with a diagnosis like this.

Shared Experiences

Jem and I seem to be going through the same type of experience with the black salve, he having applied it about a day after I did. He called me today and told me he was having dull but quick pains to the side of his head where the growth was and didn't know what to make of it (he noticed it starting after a cleaning with the hydrogen peroxide). I chuckled because I had been feeling the same pains over the previous two days, coming and going without any real pattern. I let him know that and immediately we both felt "normal" :). I've also noticed a lump behind my right jaw diminishing rapidly, so I'm not sure if that was related or not. Hard to tell if it's a lymph node peaceful warrior or not, but if so, that guy has been working overtime for a few weeks now and is earning himself a nice little break. It had blown up and gotten hard for a bit there and I had to keep reminding myself that the lymph nodes are there to protect and are more than capable of doing their job when given the opportunity. I love them so much right now for doing everything they can to help me out. I do get scared from time to time when things don't feel "right" - I've been so conditioned to think that pain is bad, and that measures need to be taken to mask any pains that show up in the body. I laugh when I think about all the times I gave myself a stomach ache from eating nothing but crap - what the hell was I expecting?? Was I anticipating my gut would be happy that I was putting brownies on top of cookies and ice cream on top of the brownies? I've always had a bit of a sweet tooth :). Sorry stomach, for all my prior transgressions; I hope you can forgive me and appreciate the goodness I've been giving you lately...and enough of this gas by the way - I'm over that.

Sleep

I need more of it, no doubt about that. Rest is so crucial but so tricky with everything I'm trying to get done throughout the day. Once I'm moved in to my bro's place completely, things will settle into a routine and be easier...right now while I'm splitting time it's harder. One more week and I'll be officially moved in.
Got the Norwalk juicer set up today finally - that thing really is amazing - amazing juice, amazing amounts of juice, amazingly easy to clean, amazingly expensive...but worth it I suppose considering the increased volume of juice that you get from the hydraulic pressing action. More juice from less produce equals fewer trips to the store and less overflow from the fridge...anything to make life even a tad easier is welcome.
On another note, I'm simplifying my life for so many reasons, not the least of which is my desire to make the living situation in a small one bedroom a bit easier for my brother and me to deal with. We had a garage sale today and managed to get 200 dollars for some stuff we would have ended up giving away anyhow - that was pretty awesome actually; people paid US to come to our apartment and haul off our junk. Next week we will do it again until life gets down to the essentials...

Gassssssy!

Whoah, today has been extremely trying on family, friends, neighbors as I have been a non-stop methane plant all day. Not exactly sure what's going on but I did feel some tenderness under the right shoulder blade so I'm guessing that liver/gall bladder are involved somehow. In any case the gas has been pretty foul-smelling, so despite the unpleasant social aspect, I welcome it as a sign that foulness is finding its way OUT of the body. It's really as bad as it's gotten through this whole ordeal so I'm pretty sure my body is working deeper into the accumulated waste. Or maybe it was just all the prunes I ate yesterday. What a process! Every day is something different, something challenging, something (good OR bad) to remind me I'm alive! And that part of living fully is accepting EVERYTHING that life brings my way...life is great, even when it's not so great! This really does feel like a forging by fire that will temper me into hardened steel, sharp and ready to face challenges head on...

The Enema Diaries...

Many of these posts will be made while I'm doing my daily coffee enemas, as I have about 15 minutes to burn while I retain the coffee in the colon. Here I am, on all fours in the tub, trying to overcome the peristaltic shudders that want to get that coffee and other accumulated waste out. The story behind how the coffee enema started is a fascinating one. I guess during WWII, German nurses were forced to improvise when they completely ran out of morphine but were still faced with screaming patients in need of some sedative. Noticing that the doctors who were working round the clock seemed to get a real lift from the coffee they were drinking, the nurses began filling the enema bags with coffee in place of the morphine solution they were normally injecting (*Check on this, it may have been some other solution that they ran out of). Not truly knowing how it worked, but recognizing that it was having an effect on the pain and well-being of the patients, the nurses were responsible for introducing to the world the practice I now partake in at least two times a day(I wish I was getting in the 5 recommended...I'm lucky if I get three to four). The blood in the body circulates through the liver every three minutes, getting a quick cleansing of any foreign or harmful products before being sent on its merry way. During a coffee enema, the caffeine in the coffee is absorbed by a special vein that runs directly to the liver...and boy does the liver lover this little boost. Caffeine absorbed through this vein has the opposite effect of caffeine taken orally; it causes the bile ducts to open up and empty into the small intestine for elimination, greatly reducing the toxic load on the liver. In healing cancer patients, this is especially needed because of the massive amount of toxins involved in the breakdown and elimination of necrotic or diseased tissue. Not only that, but because of the general cleansing effects of the Gerson Therapy, there are stored toxins and chemicals and waste products that are finally ushered to elimination by the body...as you might imagine, this elimination is not always easy to handle (picture kicking up clouds of dirty dust that had settled down - as you're getting that dust out, it might irritate the eyes a bit :) but is always necessary if the body is to attain a higher state of health (we don't want to just sweep the dust under the proverbial rug). The coffee enema, a pleasant smelling morning/evening ritual, is a powerful aid in getting the liver and gall bladder cleaned out to get after more cleansing (we're emptying the dust pan here people!)! Thank God for German Nurses!

Brainstorming Photo Ops...

Definitely kicking myself for not chronicling the mole progression from itchy to biopsy to healing to black salve to fall off(!) to heal over...I will get some close ups of the current scab (7 days after application of the "magic salve" :)and plan on continuing to have a record from this point forward.
Other ideas:
Body comp photos - the idea here being that as my body goes through the changes/healing my bodyweight setpoint will be changing and adjusting to a new (and healthier) "normal". However that manifests would make a nice pictorial.
Skin close-ups - especially of the other two wide excisions, as the body begins to heal and tighten them up it would be good to have a record of it. There is a bit of lumpiness on the shoulderblade scar, and the one on my head is already tightening up (?!?) with some raised scar tissue in the middle...will be good to have some pics for proof.

For this I will need a camera that can get tight close-ups...any ideas?

Open house

The beach apartment is goin up for rent...not having a kitchen was an impossible hurdle, much as I fantasized about making it work so I could stay by the beautiful beach and the sound of the neighbor's bubbling koi pond...
Had a double shot of E3 Live and wheatgrass, bee pollen, noni, and apple cider vinegar. Eating my oatmeal with pears and raisins, feeling good good! The mole drained a bunch more last night; clear, odorless fluid as usual. The nervy sensations in my right leg seem to have lessened somewhat? We shall see what that was all about...

Leg

Wierd pains in my right leg on the outside of the calf - is my nerve rebuilding?