I have entered The Window of Death. Sounds momentous, ominous, doesn't it? Especially with the caps and the definite article. I use the term with some but not total irony. When I was first diagnosed with stage four cancer that was of an aggressive nature ( 8 on the 10 point Gleason scale), I was told that I had three to seven years to live. That was three years, one month ago. Shortly after, I wrote the following poem:
Steaming Into Port
I see the ship up over the horizon
Its presence and position not obscured by fog.
Its progress imperceptible except that
After not watching, it’s bigger when I look back.
Not much question where it’s heading
It’s coming, straight line, right here.
The Good Ship Mortality.
It concentrates the mind
As Samuel Johnson said.
Things lose their triviality
As they become finite.
An edge of sadness
But only an edge.
If it’s what’s to be,
It’s what’s to be.
Not despondent but fatalistic. Since then, the picture has brightened, of course. The ship has taken a turn. I thoroughly expect the window to close to a healthy and amused self four years from now. I still don't know what being sick with cancer feels like. My participation in the cancer community feels like a mascarade. Let me say though that when I asked my Oncology doctor how I was doing (a foolish question!), I was told, as I have reported before, that I was above average. Beats being average I guess. I wish I were above in getting done what I would like to get done in the course of a week, a month.
I still mostly do what I am supposed to do to beat this thing. I take my meds. I do Vitamin C infusion but have cut back to once every four weeks. I had started out every week. They have bumped up the price and the urgency was not there to shell out a lot of money when things were fine. I have made a tea out of white pine needles that I have been drinking about every day. Excellent source of Vit C. As good as four oranges. I eat a scant amount of meat. Not much that is sweet. I am a light/moderate drinker. I don't always drink when I am out and about on occasions where it would have been natural to drink. Alcohol converts to sugar and sugar feeds cancer. Don't want that.
The big thing, the thing that really prompts this blog entry is that I still do fitness training. Included in that are three one minute sessions of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) along with some other stuff. There was a study done by Tel Aviv University which found that HIIT is the most effective cancer treatment there is, beating medication etc. It reduces metastatic cancer by 72 %
Why the drums have not been beaten loudly over that finding I do not know. The cynical explanation is that it is hard to monetize (except for gyms). Anyway, it is information that really should be commonly known. So, if you would read the article and forward it to anyone you know with a cancer diagnosis--and maybe some others too, that would be good. |
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