76 Immunotherapy

"Remember, it is just a "snapshot" in time....anything can change and anything is possible...."

One of my friends from 5 Day Silent Retreat gave me this amazing message. It seemed impossible at first, but it started to sound convincing as I was gaining back my healthy mind.

I was almost making up my mind what to do next, but just hesitant to declare because it might sound ridiculous and impossible.

The idea was to go to California to cure. I was given this information about Issels Medical Center in Santa Barbara, CA, which is an outpatient facility providing immunotherapy.

As I lost confidence in continuing natural cure, something more concrete sounded good to me, and yet natural approach sounded even better.

And of course the location sounded attractive, although a little far from L.A. where I have many friends, but it is in California! 

Actually I had signed up for my dream workshop by Robert Burridge in Arroyo Grande, which happened to be near Santa Barbara, in early September, and I had already planned a trip. So I could easily add my California stay to make it a healing and art vacation, well if I didn't have to worry about the cost.

I compared in my mind what it would like to be taking further treatments this summer in California or in Tokyo. In California I would drive car to get around in the comfortable California weather, get healthy food easily, staying at healthy friends' who understand my diet, or in Tokyo I would have to walk, take trains to go anywhere, to hospital or to grocery shopping (not healthy enough for me) in the severe summer heat, mainly asking for my sick mom's help, etc.

It's so obvious that I should go to California for cure! 

75 Pleural fluid build-up

Although I tried to look on the bright side of things, taking healing and treatments to get temporary lull on my health, the pain in my rib cage was apparently getting worse, at the point where I could not lie flat to go to sleep because too painful to get up and lie down, and my shortness of breath was escalating, as I could hardly walk, and climbing stairs was out of the question. 

Once I arrived at work and sat at my desk I felt better finally although I was constantly coughing lightly whenever I tried to speak. I was always tired and sleepy, and my skin was so dry all over.

One day my boss came to me and said, "You look terrible. Please go to see a doctor and have an X-ray." I must have been in denial of decline in my health, because I never thought about taking a leave until I was told that. So I did as told the next day, then was told to go to the hospital immediately because my lungs were filled with fluid.

That was the beginning of July, exactly 2 years after I started working there, and as suddenly as it was, my office work career was over like that.

I called my mother to tell her the situation and asked to look after my daughter, then I admitted myself to the hospital the next day.

From then on, I had to surrender and let go of everything, and let everything in. I had to give up curing all naturally.

I took drainage of pleural space on the right side, to get rid of 2.3L of fluid which had been suffocating me. There were some fluid on the left side, too, however it was decided not to be treated that time.

Then I learned that it was caused by breast cancer. They also detected by CT scan on my lungs that it had spread to my spine, pretty badly.

I could not believe this was happening to me. I was believing that things were going fine, and I was happier and positive, and thought I was careful about my diet. How could that have gone this wrong?

Doctors looked at me just like they were looking at a poor patient who was dying soon. As I declared in the beginning that I did not want further medical treatment for cancer or any medicines related to it, they seemed to be puzzled. But the chief doctor suggested that I should take pleurodesis. Oh no, another medical treatment!

This causes high fever as it takes advantage of the artificial inflammation to make the adhesion work on the pleura. I had to deal with the fever and the heartbreak in my hospital bed.

What will I do now? If what I've been doing turned out this way, what else can I do to heal this?

It seemed hopeless. Then again I remembered one thing I could do: "let go" and "surrender".

Then one early morning a few days later, I woke up feeling refreshed without high fever after night sweat, and noticed that I was so grateful and happy.

I got hit by bliss and could not stop crying for a while, filled with appreciation and love.
I remembered the encouraging messages and words, helpful information I received, and cried. 

Then I thought about my supportive family, and friends who let my daughter stay over to give my mom some rest, and then finally everybody who came into my life in the past, and I felt tremendous love and appreciation to each of them and cried more.

It was funny that I was so happy when I was supposed to be in despair medically. Then after clearing my emotions, I felt something funny next. I felt as if a tiny laughing bag got in my tummy, and it broke up into hundreds of them and spread to my whole body and started laughing. That made me start to giggle. I remembered how funny the guys were at the office, remembering exact conversations and giggled, and other funny things happened before. 

And then I came up with a good idea of healing my body, imagining these little laughing ones go to my infected parts to laugh the cancer cells or bad stuff away.

That day I felt for sure I would be OK.

74 Giving advice to a cancer colleague

Recently, a co-worker took a long sick leave. After a month she came back and said she had to take another one. Turned out, she had ovarian cancer and had hystero-oophorectomy, and after the biopsy, she was diagnosed as cell cancer. 

She was sitting close to me when I started working, observing me how I set up my work station with two thermos full of raw veggie juice and a couple of bins of Dr. Schulze's herb extracts, and curiously studied my lunch-box full of raw veggies and fruit, with weird powder (for colon cleansing).

I told her my story, and she was all interested and told me she was hoping to find a solution without chemical treatments, as she was supposed to decide how to proceed with chemo therapy soon.

I didn't mean to brain-wash her, but couldn't help to tell her that there are many options other than chemical treatments. In her case, she didn't know anything about natural healing or spirituality, but interestingly, she found that her dentist could perform energy healing just because she told him about her situation and the fear for the damage by chemo therapy. She said he was the first one to agree with her and told her there would be options, too. 

Whatever she chooses is best for her, so I decided not to push anything on her. She has been searching for her own path, started looking within as well as outside for help, such as energy healing.

So now I have someone at work that I can share my thoughts and experiences with. 

62 Old family issues and check-up

Appreciating and letting things be or happen became my second nature by then. And besides many things were improving including work and living/home environment, just at the right timing, big tidal waves of old family issues surfaced up and started occurring.

Family relationship has been one of the most difficult things in life for me. I thought I was getting better to deal with them and feeling OK, but there were deeper issues which I had overlooked unconsciously, that I had to feel and face with.

Thanks to my recent achievement to a certain blissful state, I could handle these unpleasant events in my most calm and rational state, and even enjoyed them as interesting experiences in a way. And they certainly helped improve relationship in the family as a result.

Just that I was not in the highest high during these events, I did not feel like going to have my annual check-up on my breast cancer. It's been a year already.... I was amazed how far I had come since then, and filled with appreciation.

I consulted with my retreater friend about my feelings for check-up. I was told not to go if I didn't feel good about it. Yes, I was AFRAID and not ready to face it yet. I didn't feel like seeing the doctor who told me "you'll be sorry." What if I have a recurrent of breast cancer? I wouldn't take chemical treatment anyway, so what's the use? And I didn't want to go through mammography which is radiation. Well, I only want to prove that I am cured, but since cancer tends to recur within 2 years, so I  decided to come back when I feel sure by then.

Instead, I went for my thyroid check-up. There I was a bit disappointed to learn that the tiny cancer was still there in the same size. Well, nobody knows if it got much smaller but came back when I felt negative. Anyway the good news was that there was no action or medicine required.

48 Tiny Thyroid Cancer

It took me 4 months in total for the whole process, and I finally found out what was wrong with my thyroid by biopsy.  (Nothing compared to the one for breast cancer, thank God.)

To make a long story short, a small cancer was found on the left side of my thyroid, however it was only 7mm in diameter and not close to any important organ, thus the doctor decided to take a wait-and-see approach. 

Hooray! It was no big deal after all, although it was identified as "cancer". 

"Thyroid cancer is pretty slow-growing, and often found accidentally by PET/CT. In some cases there's no disabling symptoms or no harm when it is as big as 5cm in diameter, so people don't realize them until then, and it's not too late to decide what to do at that point," he explained to me lightheartedly.

The more I visited the hospital the more relaxed I became, and among so many doctors (I saw different one every time) I must have attracted the most relaxed one to diagnose my case on that day. I liked his vibration and the way he described to me. I naturally reacted very cheerfully to the diagnosis.

"Wow, thank you for telling me. It was such a relief to know the cancer was too tiny to worry about for now!" 

As I mentioned before, I am pretty sure that the cancer had gotten shrunk by my "happier" vibration. I didn't feel choked around my throat any longer, and I was communicating with people much smoother, which is a good sign since thyroid is related to communication chakra. This little cancer may be gone by the next check-up which is 6 months from now!

47 Thyroid check-up

I finally made up my mind to have my thyroid checked. It's been 4 months since PET/CT showed something suspicious on both sides of my thyroid.

Although I was told at the breast clinic that breast cancer does not spread to thyroid, I also heard the opposite opinion coincidentally from my uncle indirectly. He's a medical doctor and heard that I got breast cancer from his brother (my Dad), and told Dad that it would make things complicated if it spread to thyroid, and that he was hoping it would't happen to me. Dad called me to tell me that without any clue, so I didn't tell him anything.

The hospital specialized in thyroid is located in the middle of Omotesando, one of the high-end fashion areas in Tokyo. Honestly, I wasn't excited to go there because that was where my previous work was at, reminding me of sour memories, and I wasn't interested in strolling up the crowded street, or shopping in the most expensive area any longer. Most of all, I was afraid to find out something fatal in my thyroid.

Wow, don't I sound negative enough? So I decided to enjoy the day instead, dressed up to explore the area with my daughter, just like we do in Disneyland, since its going to take a whole day, waiting between several checkups.

So it turned out fun, watching fashionable people, the high-end design and architecture, fancy sport car passing by, checking out fancy stores and cafes, etc.

I took blood test, palpation, ultrasound in between above fun. 

After 2 weekends, I came back for the results, and was told to take biopsy next time. Yikes. Good thing was, by ultrasound, the suspected areas appeared much smaller than how it looked by PET/CT. The doctor said ultrasound should be much more accurate, but I assumed "the bad area" gotten smaller by my higher vibration and better diet!

27 The result of PET/CT

The following week was the last week at my previous job. Oh, how happy I was to leave there finally! I was so unhappy there and it was about time to make a move.  I tried to make a difference by changing my perceptions, but sometimes we have to make a real "move". No guilt, no calling it a failure nor give-up. Just accept the flow and follow through. 

Fortunately my successor was found in time and the handover was pretty smooth. Everything was perfect. Meanwhile, I kept myself busy with natural treatment. 

The Ionic Body Balancer arrived and I started trying it every day. (I was greedy to get the maximum effect before the trip. Usually once a week is good enough.) Interestingly, the water in foot bath changes color depending on the health condition. First it turned orange, then brown, then greenish black. It's really disgusting! But after a couple of days, it didn't go black any more and stayed brown. It's supposed to mean my gallbladder was detoxed. If you try this, do not to forget to take lots of water and Vitamin C.  I was recommended to take Emergen-C.

I was also doing Hot and Cold Shower (Water) Therapy every day (it's recommended to do 2-3 times a day), doing my vegan/raw food/no salt diet as much as possible, and walking for an hour every day (exercise for at least 1 hour/day is recommended by Dr. Schulze). 

So the week went quickly by, and Saturday I went back to the clinic for the result of my PET/CT and to make the final decision.

And the result was.....(Drum roll) 
They found no cancer in my body except something suspicious in my thyroid. Yes, they did find some "big" suspects in both sides on my thyroid. They did not specify them as cancer since they are not thyroid specialists. Instead, I was recommended that I should go to the hospital specialized in thyroid to have them checked. 

A very useful information was that breast cancer does not spread to thyroid thus this should be a separate case. I was glad that it hadn't spread to my brain, bones, liver or lung, which are the usual places for breast cancer to metastasize to.

The doctor wanted to prioritize to treat breast cancer, and had no idea how that would affect the treatment to the "problem" in thyroids. 

I figured that I could go on with natural treatment if it's nothing to do with breast cancer. So I thanked the doctor, and made it clear that I still wanted to choose natural cure.

Deep down, it was disappointing to know that there was another thing to worry about. I knew I had sensations of something stuck around my throat when I felt stress. And it is communication chakra. My communication ability was at the worst then, so no surprise.

26 PET/CT

I went to take PET/CT and brought my daughter with me. 

At the reception, I was dismayed to learn that a small child like her cannot come near me for 2 hours after the test because of too much radiation exposure. That meant she had to wait for more than 4 hours alone! 

That's ridiculous...nobody told me about it at the clinic, and I regretted that I didn't study what to expect. I didn't even think about radiation at all in the first place...so stupid of me. It is totally against natural treatment.... Later on I learned that the dosage of radiation under PET/CT is 250 times greater than regular X-ray. But it was too late.

When I was all done and came back to the waiting area after about 90 to 120 minutes, I saw my daughter waited patiently, bored by playing her Nintendo DS and reading all the books there. Too bad I could not hug her, but glad she was old enough to know that she had to keep distance from me.

I was told that as long as keeping 1 meter away from each other would be fine, so we went to eat. We were starving! So we sat far apart from each other in a big table and enjoyed lunch for 2 hours. We used the time to plan fun things to do in L.A.

I was very tired that day. Maybe from too much radiation...or from the cappuccino I had for a little treat for myself! .....or both. (Eating out is tricky for my diet in general, especially the salt part.)

25 "I'm sorry, but I decided not to take chemical treatment."

Going back to where I was at my medical situation,

I had to make a decision on a course of treatment, and finally the day came. 

My mom, still mostly on her wheel chair and very weak from her illness made it to accompany me at the appointment.

The breast clinic finally found Herceptin would not suit my cancer type from the series of examinations, and recommended I should start from taking another anti-cancer drug first and then hormone treatment. 

By the time I became clear that I had no intention of going through chemical cure. But I kept my option open for just in case. I wanted to respect what the doctors would offer. 

"So when would you like to start?", said the doctor.

"I'm sorry, but I decided not to take chemical treatment", said I.

"......??"

"I decided to take natural treatment. I do believe in it."

"...I see. If you insist, we cannot force you. In that case please sign here."

Doctor pulled out a piece of paper to prove that they had informed me and offered treatment to me, and I signed.

I finally had the guts to say it! 

I appreciated that this doctor in charge of chemical treatment was not like the others who treated me in mocking tone when I mentioned natural treatment.

And I appreciated that my mom supported my decision.

Only thing I decided to take forward medically was to take PET/CT to see if there was any cancer development in other area.

I said to the doctor that I would not resist to take chemotherapy only if something really crucial found by PET/CT, like metastatic cancer in my brain. 

15 Lots of research could kill you. Just go with you gut feeling.

This was the worst case scenario for me. This meant my cancer had spread widely through the lymph nodes. It sounded pretty bad, and once again, my revived California dream was shattered completely.

Although my heart was almost in natural healing, this result made it sink, as if in no-win situation. Were all the healthy endeavors meaningless?

I had to wait for further examination results in order for the doctors to decide  which treatment would suite the character of my cancer. Anyway, in a few weeks I had to make up my mind about how to proceed. It seemed impossible for me to decline doctor's suggestions at this point.

At the time I was still researching on breast cancer from natural cure to the latest medical cure, reading patients'  blogs and also checking information and books I received from family and friends. I thought I had to find the best answer somewhere out there.

Thing is, there are so many cases, reports, datas that you would want to read in limited time and you'd find nothing is perfect because there are always contradictions.

You would end up exhausted and stressed for "not knowing the best answer".

Anita Moorjani, who cured from metastatic cancer through Near Death Experience says, "Lots of research could create fear, and fear creates cancer. I'd say you just go with your gut feelings which treatment you decide to take."

14 Lymph node biopsy results

The next day after my daughter left for school, I took off the breast band. My breast, underarm and side were badly bruised and looked nothing like what I took glance of right after the surgery.  

Soon after, a lady from my neighborhood, who is a childcare person for my daughter kindly visited me to  see if I was doing fine. She is the nicest lady I ever know. I only told her about my surgery but did not tell her any details. She brought me some fruit and asked me if she could help me in any way. I was so grateful, and asked her to go shopping with me.  It was a bit challenging because it hurt to walk, but it was worthwhile. My doctor recommended that I should exercise as much as I could, since I was suppose to go back to work in a week.

And from the next day, it was the long weekend. I sent my child to her father for 4 days, and again my friend helped accompanying her to the airport.

How I appreciated everything!  
I looked at my bruised breasts every day and thanked God or universe for letting me have these miracles.

After 4 days of the surgery, I went back to the clinic for check-up and results for biopsy. Again, with the same dear friend to accompany me to witness. 

The doctor made a sour face and said,  "The results were no good. "

In regular lymph node biopsy they take out 4 lymph nodes to check, but in my case they took 8 and they were all infected. Therefore they recommended that I should  take chemotherapy, and hormone treatment to follow, and radiation. The full course!

13 After surgery

I started to hear something from far away, and still in a haze, these voices reminded me that I was being given surgery. 

"Wonder how she's going to support herself after this.""She's going through divorce with her child, and her mother is in serious illness."

Doctors must have had no idea that I could hear their conversation, but it was done so close to me and just above me,  and I was in between them.

"Gee, leave me alone! I can make it somehow!", I said to myself in drowsiness.

After all done, a nurse woke me up, then I had to get up and walk back to the patients room by myself. Although still groggy by anesthesia, I took a glance at my breasts before they put thick bandages around them. 

How they looked so clean and beautiful (didn't see any bruises then)! That was the biggest relief. Thank you, doctors! 

It was about 10pm already when I returned to my bed, but the same friend who accompanied me kindly waited and also brought another good friend to say hello to me at the bed, which was so nice. The operation took 3 hours, which was more than expected, and I was told why it took that long later on.

The next morning I was out of the hospital. The same friend came to meet me, and another friend came to give us a ride to my apartment. They brought their best "natural" food for me to have a little tea party. Again, I was really fortunate.  

I could walk but I could not use my arms much, and I could not lie down because it was impossibly painful to get up due to the pain in the breasts. So I was supposed to rest in sitting posture for a while.

In the afternoon, my girl came home from school, and I greeted her in the bedroom. That I remember, but honestly I can't remember how we spent time the rest of the day and the next day. I was sure that I prepared meal for her, but I just don't remember.

12 The day of surgery

I was so thankful that the fund for my surgery arrived from New York, and that a couple of good  friends kindly committed to accompany me for clinic visits since none of my family was available, and also that a family friend would take care of my child while I was in hospital. I never felt this supported in my life before. I always felt guilty to ask, and felt I had to give much more in return. 

All I had to do was to let go of my fear and to take life's wonderful offers with gratitude, and to give what I purely wanted to in return, but not necessarily to the same person who gave.

I thought I'd already  "understood" the concept of unconditional love, but I always put myself on the giving side, but never, to come to think of it,  allowed myself on the receiving side. Now after opened up and receiving, I feel like I can give better!

I wore a bright-colored floral-printed shirt on the day of surgery to raise my spirit. I was a bit nervous but more excited to get cancer taken out of me and get brand new breasts by the top surgeon.

I was so lucky to have chosen this clinic,  because the doctor turned out to be well known and supposed to be one of the top breast surgeon specialized in both medical and plastic surgery, and most of all, considered best for simultaneous reconstruction. I had no idea!

Finally I was called up for treatment, and said good bye to my friend. After final blood tests, it seemed forever to wait on a bed, starving and thirsty waiting for my turn. I saw a patient with bloody gown loudly walked in, heard another patient talking about the silicon broke in her breast... I was hoping not to become scared. At that point I just wanted to get it done ASAP. After 6-7 hours after arriving at the clinic, I was finally called to the operation room. And into the room I walked in.....

Now, it's show time!