I didn't write yesterday. I had a light day and we went into town after lunch. One of the other patients had this awesome blanket/poncho thing that looked so comfortable and warm. She said she had gotten it in town, so we set out to find one. As we were walking, we came upon a gang of wild chickens. There were 6 or so, just kind of wandering around. They wanted nothing to do with us. They were pretty funny though.
We finally made it into Rosarito proper. It was a longer walk than I had thought it would be, so I was pretty tired when we finally made it there. It was a pretty small strip with a bunch of touristy shops, panhandlers, and taco stands. I have heard that these tacos are some of the best in the world. I sure do wish I could have had one!
They had some really nice rocks, crystals, and shells too, so that was right up my alley. You have to haggle with some of them on the prices or they will try to overcharge for them though. I did end up finding my poncho/blanket for a reasonable price. I got a pretty shell too. (No that's not pee im holding, that's peppermint tea.)
On the way back we decided to get a taxi. After we had paid our pesos, we got in and were on our way. I have no sense of direction and I rely on John's most of the time. He can usually just lick his finger, hold it in the air and tell where we are headed, but though he wont admit it, he was super frazzled and going through culture shock. So we ended up being let out too far from the street the clinic is on. This would have been ok if it werent for the cancer/fatigue and all, so I did start to whine a bit at this point. We passed some interesting security fencing on our way back. There were a lot of houses with fencing like this.
Johns instincts did kick back in, and he got us to our temporary home safely. Then it was time for juice and a quick nap. The nurse woke me up to give me my Coley's vaccine. This one sucks. It makes you feel like crap. I have been reading that getting this shot as close to the tumor as possible is more effective, and I talked to the doctor about injecting it directly into my groin as there is lymph node involvement, and one of the lymph nodes has grown a lot the past couple of months, so to me, injecting it into those lymph nodes makes sense. He agreed to that, but I guess he had forgotten to mention it to the nurse because she looked at me like I was crazy when I asked her. She wouldn't do it, so I took the needle and injected it near the largest node myself, while she watched in horror- lol.
It doesn't take long for this vaccine to kick in. Maybe an hour or so. I started getting extremely depressed. Just listless. I couldn't read, talk to anyone, eat, get on the computer. Everything just felt all wrong. I had dark thoughts, and became fixated on thinking about my son, how much I am missing out on, and feeling like I am failing him as a mother. John tried to reassure me, but to no avail. All that I could really do was lie there and try to sleep- so I went to sleep at 8:30. I had major chills and cold sweats all night. I woke up several times literally stuck to the bed in sweat. My muscles ached, and my lymph nodes were sore and achy as well. I had very vivid, terrible nightmares. It felt just like it feels when you have the flu or some other really bad sickness. I woke up in the morning and still did not feel good. My skin was very sensitive, even my clothes touching it hurt, and my lymph nodes on the right side were very tender and swollen. (Doing their job!) I tried to get a pic of it, but it's hard to do without exposing my lady bits to the world! See the smaller node to the right? That big red blob of a node looked kind of like that one yesterday.
After we woke up today, Dr P gave a lecture. I could listen to him talk all day. This lecture was basically a run down of what to do/not to do when we get home. The Gerson therapy is very specific. If you do one seemingly small thing wrong, it can render the whole therapy ineffective, so it's important to learn all the details, (which I have not even begun to do yet it feels!) I won't be able to have pineapple, berries, basil, oregano, or curry due to the aromatic acids they contain. I don't want to butcher his words, but basically Dr. Gerson felt that these acids interfered with the healing process due to how they affect the liver and its detox pathways. We are told to avoid sugar with cancer. I was avoiding all sugar, even from fruits, and only having berries and pineapple on occasion because I thought they were "the good fruits" so this in itself is a big change. This therapy is heavy on fruits, and we are allowed 3 teaspoons of sugar per day, whether this is from honey, molasses, maple syrup, or sucanat. I plan to post more in depth explanations of these things once I learn them well enough myself.
He touched on the importance of sunlight and chlorophyll. He asked "what is the first thing you notice about a sick person?" They have no energy, they're lethargic. Why? Because they are unable to make energy at a cellular level. We have to repair the metabolism- flood the body with nutrients and detoxify the cells so that we can begin to make energy correctly again.
We are given spirulina twice per day in our green juice, and we also put spirulina in our three enemas daily. He said chlorophyll is made to draw light to it, so if you flood the body with chlorophyll through oral form and through the enema, the chlorophyll will get sucked up by the cancer cells. You then go sit in the sun or a far infrared sauna for 15-20 mins, and it will cause the cancer cells to destroy themselves. I am not explaining this even half as well as he did, but it makes a lot of sense when he explains it.
For 6 weeks we are on a fruit and veggie diet. That's it. Protein comes from the veggies, juices, spirulina- with brown rice, lentils, or quinoa once a week. After the 6 weeks we will add in 4 ounces of NON-FAT yogurt every other day. He stressed the importance of it being non fat. On Gerson the ONLY fat that you are allowed is 2-3 tblsp of flax oil with NO LIGNANS per day. It can't contain lignans because a cancer patient's digestive system can't handle digesting lignans. Flax oil is molecularly different from any other fat. It is basically able to pull oxygen into the mitochondria of the cell. The reason we can't have any other fat is because cancer cells are fat/hormone fed monsters. He mentioned that he has seen patients come in and get better, then go home, and after 6 months or so they aren't improving much. The only thing they have done wrong is adding in either low fat or full fat dairy.
He said if you are a normal healthy person, avocado and coconut oil are a perfect superfood, but nothing could be worse for a cancer patient. At home I was eating as much avocado and coconut milk/oil as possible because I thought it was helping me. There is SO much conflicting information out there. From what I can gather, you can't pick and choose from different therapies, you need to pick one and then stick with it, don't try to reinvent the wheel.
Another thing he touched on was salt. We aren't allowed ANY type of salt. We aren't even allowed to use baking soda for brushing our teeth or in deodorant. He said lemons work great as a natural deodorant- I have to try this. I was putting himalayan salt on everything I ate. I would even wake up in the middle of the night and take a pinch to help me sleep. I am not able to elaborate on the science behind this yet, but it has to do with sodium/potassium/and calcium balance, salt helps cancer cells take up nutrients more effectively. I will write further on this once I understand more of the science behind it, but again, he explained this brilliantly. The only water I should be drinking is spring water or Kangen.
No creams, lotions, or scents/cleaning products because they all contain large amounts of fake estrogen. Cancer cells love it. I already knew this. For cleaning I should use a mixture of 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide mixed with tea tree oil and water in a spray bottle. This cleans as well as anything out there without harmful chemicals. They also have an ozonator. If you put all of your fruits and veggies into ozonated water for about 1 minute it completely kills anything harmful.
Interesting stuff! I have a lot to learn. If theres anything that I have learned so far from this whole cancer thing that is it! Never stop learning!
After the lecture and my PNC iv, John and I went exploring along the beach. It was really nice. For a short while, it felt like we were on a vacation and spending quality time together instead of staying at a cancer clinic in a foreign country trying to save my life. Here are a few pics from that adventure, I hope I uploaded them correctly....Off to bed now. Love to all. xoxo