This is the sixth time I have tried to write this diary. Each time it has turned into the kind of paint peeling rant that would require you the reader--to wear a welding mask as a protective measure. It is safe to say, in a fully sarcastic voice, that I am a wee bit annoyed right now with the constant barrage of STOOPID I see all around me, regarding the topic of this diary.
Also know, that dealing with cancer is terrifying. That is what is behind all this is fear, indignation, hurt, and disappointment. Because I truly believe, perceive, that we as a nation could do so much better by cancer patients, any medical patients at all really. So what I offer you are just a few suggestions out of many more I could make, but just cannot fit into one diary. You don't have to agree with me, but consider where I am coming from. Oh and the anger--that's all me telling you how I see it. That's me being impatient with humanity, for not seeing what I believe is obvious to those with a reasonable education in health and medicine and nutrition. This is me screaming out to the universe to all that need to hear me--Why the Hell Do you Put People Through This, when there are ways to reduce their pain, and suffering or even alleviate some or all of their conditions? WHY!
So put on your fire retardant gear and jump through the orange portal and take a walk on my wild side. And if you are disappointed that I didn't curse more or make nasty commentary more, then I will have succeeded in some small amount of self control during the writing of this diary. It will be a testament to my affection for this site.
I don't generally come at life from the usual directions. So there is my first "problem" right there. Having lived a very rough life, has given me a crash course on the ugly side of human nature. I am all too familiar with the notion that people see what they want to see, and miss what they don't expect, and ignore what they don't want to see. The motives for this, the drivers are all over the place that could be a diary in and of itself.
But for me right now, this is a potentially deadly proposition, because I am describing the medical industry from the perspective of a person living through cancer. I am describing a medical industry that I have never been particularly impressed with, one that I am periodically forced to visit for acute care from time to time. One that even when I do everything I supposed to do, they somehow manage to screw it all up. Sometimes so bad, I have to stop myself from looking for a candid camera. Their triage is good, their long term care in my experience(s) could suck the chrome off the bumper of a bus.
I say that as a person who has most likely been living with cancer inside of her body for nearly a decade, undetected, not because it was undetectable, but because it was easier for idiot, sexist doctors to assume I was fat due to a moral failing and not because of something like cancer, throwing my metabolism way, way the hell off. I just want everyone to know, I might actually die because of fat bias. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it. I didn't start out overweight, I started having health problems and gained weight suddenly and then couldn't get rid of it no matter the spin classes, water aerobics, walking, hiking, etc., (but that is another tentacle of this unfortunate story).
And now that I am dealing with care from the hot seat, my impression of quality of care has gone way down, from even the low point I started from to begin with. I had hoped that because I was entering into a field that required a high degree of specialty, that this would drive the quality up. But no. Not at all. And now we get to add to this, a total clash between my culture and that of the cancer/medical industry. This is a clash that has happened before, just never at this magnitude.
So why do I say, Crisis Management Isn't?
Because if you let something preventable or treatable go on for a long time out of laziness or negligence, til it becomes something chronic, then you have let it become a crisis. You don't manage a self inflicted crisis. And if you try to make your fortune on solving problems you created or allowed to fester--that makes you a dirt-bag, especially if people die or have their quality of life ruined because of your negligence. Some of these doctors were negligent.
And as far as I am concerned, every day, in every way the medical community at large lets our cancer epidemic fester and spread, by not coherently, vocalizing the inherent dangers of cancer causing agents that proliferate on these shores, found in every kind of personal care item, clothing, lawn and garden treatments, inside the very food we eat, in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, even in our soil. They say nothing. They know nothing. They Do Nothing! This is why veterans like myself who have been exposed to a variety of chemicals, cannot get decent treatment before cancer starts. Like the police with a battered woman, the medical community feels compelled to wait until something catastrophic happens. But this mentality doesn't stop here. The collective political and professional clout of the entire medical community could be a powerful weapon against carcinogenic pollutants, but heck, why mess with a good thing?
The constant attacks on alternative healthcare treatments really twist my tail. Most especially the campaign to equate every kind of alternative treatment with hokum, so as to confuse people who want and need some serious nutritional support to improve their outcomes and their quality of life. As an herbalist, as a person whose mother is an herbalist, I find this highly infuriating, deceitful, and the opposite of helpful or healing to people who are in dire straights.
So I am going to say the words:
Western Allopathic Medical Community--Periodically, you find out what Herbalists and other Alternative Healthcare Practitioners have known all along (sometimes for generations). Like a White Colonial seeing a waterfall for the first time in Africa or South America, you like to pretend you discovered it all by yourself, but we here down on earth, have our own names for this, and uses, and knowledge. Just because you isolated chemicals in a petri dish or centrifuge, those do not negate the generations of knowledge that existed prior to that. That doesn't convey to you sole ownership, nor does it add to your self inflicted godhood, you arrogant, self important fools.
The disconnect, the war between Commercialized Medicine and what is now termed Alternative Medicine is a combination of factors ranging from a pissing contest between Midwives and Cunningfolk in Old World Europe and the Colonies, to White Privilege being used to appropriate folk wisdom from all over the world, often transforming it into something less effective, and more expensive all for the profits of a patent.
I submit the following commentary/suggestions as evidence. It goes to show a pattern of unthinking abuse that ignores the needs of the patient in favor of the belief (not fact) that somehow Western Medicine can do what Alternative Medicine cannot--provide a magic pill that cures all. I would label this projection. I will also show that the "culture" of medicine often ignores it's own findings for years, allowing people to needlessly suffer and die because of beliefs, not based on scientific fact, because the desire to ignore nutritive integrative care (alternative healthcare--folk wisdom) is so great, that even efficacious treatments are ignored and ridiculed because they originated publicly, from outside of a lab.
FYI: Skepticism is good, blinders are bad.
1. Ignoring and destroying the immune system. When you go into surgery, any kind of surgery at all, you are given a prophylactic shot of antibiotics to stave off hospital acquired infections. This is not a bad thing, however it is not a sure thing either given the proliferation of super bugs that abound, now that we have abused the hell out of antibiotics. As a cancer patient I have a big big problem with this practice because there is no followup treatment to restore the flora in the gut, which herbalists and naturopaths have known, research scientists have confirmed (note validated) thanks to AIDs research, your GI (gut) contains 70 percent of your immune system function. When you have cancer, you often go through several surgeries. Which means rounds of powerful antibiotics pumped into a body whose immune system is already under siege by renegade cells somewhere in your body that will not stop reproducing, nor will they die.
One would think that Doctors would have figured out by now, how precious the immune system is, to a cancer patient.
For those cancer patients that go into spontaneous remission, the immune system is what will play an integral part in that healing process. In fact I posit that by supporting the immune system via probiotics and nutrition that this is what leads to positive outcomes by affecting the epigenetics of the patient. Telling it to fight for the body rather than lay down and let the cancer proliferate or worse, temporarily silence the genes that hold cancerous prerequisites in check.
This is something that Herbalists, Naturopaths, and other Alternative Health Practitioners have known all along. That Food is medicine (just like Hippocrates said) and that the immune system is key to maintaining a body during disease, and even the key to alleviating the condition of disease, or in the very least, a more gentle method of handling symptoms of chronic disease. That there is a plasticity of and in the physiology of the body that can be manipulated not only by drugs but with nutrition, exercise, meditation, herbs, supplements, and environment. Another DUH moment brought to you by Life! This is what makes humans resilient.
But back to the flora that live in your gut that comprise most of your immune system:
...Gut-associated lymphoid tissue accounts for 70 percent of the body's immune system...The team's discovery highlights the importance of the gut during the initial stages of infection, as gut tissue represents a major component of the body's immune system. "The real battle between the virus and exposed individuals is happening in the gut immediately after viral infection," said Dandekar. "We need to be focusing our efforts on improving treatment of gut mucosa, where massive destruction of immune cells is occurring. Gut-associated lymphoid tissue accounts for 70 percent of the body's immune system. Restoring its function is crucial to ridding the body of the virus. Scienceagogo
We know that cancer can sometimes be controlled or even resolved with a supported, healthy immune system. Why?
Introducing friendly bacteria into the digestive system improves how we absorb vitamins, nutrients, and co-factors, so overall immunity is boosted," said Doctor Tasneem Bhatia, medical director of the Atlanta Center of Integrative Medicine. ABC News
However doctors insist on doing nothing to support cancer patients after surgery-(prophylactic use of antibiotics), nor when they use chemotherapy or radiation, which also wipes out their gut flora.
The use of probiotics would not only serve the greater good of the patient, but it could also help prevent new infections of C. Diffidus, a horrible form of diarrhea that is so bad, that patients could die from it, or end up as shut ins wearing adult diapers. Just use of antibiotics can cause diarrhea all by itself without the C. Diffidus bug, and we know probiotics can help with that too. Use of antibiotics in a weakened body also lead to systemic yeast infections. This can further suppress immunity allowing cancer and who knows what else to progress.
In other countries they actually give some patients drip IVs with probiotics to help recolonize the G.I. Maybe some day exceptional M'urica will figure this out too.
Probiotics aren't a recent discovery. Some of us have been using them for decades, regardless of what the industrial yogurt industry would have you believe. I remember when you couldn't buy vitamins or probiotics in any place but a dedicated health food store. I remember when the use of certain fungi could only be accessed if you knew someone with a mother mushroom culture who would be willing to give you or sell you a daughter mushroom, and then you had to grow it yourself. To buy any sort of supplement beyond the drugstore ABCs, you would have to drive for miles to find such a merchant that carried such arcane and esoteric products.
The notion of probiotics, and prebiotics is in part, the movement behind eating what are called live foods, which is to say certain kinds of cheese, yogurts, honey, milk, etc., and certain other fermented foods as well. Humans have benefited from probiotics for as long as they have been consuming breast milk, but some of these bacterium were scientifically isolated in 1907 by a Russian Nobel Laureate Elie Metchnikoff. I would take it step further, Mammals have been benefiting from probiotics for as long as there has been mammary glands. Ever wonder why you get so many antibodies from mother's milk? Well wonder no more. Another irreplaceable role played by the humble mom. And you thought boobs were just eye-candy-fun-bags!
Herbs and nutritional supplements are pretty amazing if utilized properly. They can't solve all your problems, but they can damn sure help you live a better life, especially if you have stubborn or chronic health issues. They can give a person a fighting chance at better health or even a normal life.
Next Issue:2. Failure to provide appropriate supplementation of vitamins in order to speed healing after surgery, but also to boost the immune system beyond rebuilding gut flora--Meaning Vitamin C infusions and Vitamin B injections (for starters).
Did you know that after you go through a big surgery, that if you pass a little blood test, you too could be a candidate for an IV drip that contains various vitamins and minerals that can help you heal better and faster?
No?
Well why is that? Why not? Why hasn't anyone told you?
And did you know that Vitamin C infusions are an excellent means to boost your immune system, strengthen the body, and even can be used to reduce chemo-therapy side effects, as well as attack the cancer itself? Vitamin C infusions can also help reduce inflammation too. (hello swollen pieces-parts that have been hacked on and sewn back together.
Well it's true. But lets ignore that, and cut you up into tiny pieces and let you suffer instead. Its cheaper (is it really?) and more convenient too (is it really?)
Vitamin C promotes the healing of wounds, it can bind to heavy metals so that they can be excreted from the body. It is,
"...an antioxidant that is required for at least three hundred metabolic functions in the body, including tissue growth and repair, adrenal gland function, and healthy gums. Guide to Nutritional Healing pp 23"
The importance of binding with heavy metals in the body for excretion? Those heavy metals can bind with receptors in your body meant for Zinc or Calcium and other beneficial substances that affect gene code expression. This is why things like arsenic and lead can be underlying causes of cancer. And heavy metals are found in pesticides, paint on toys and other objects, in cheap metals, home decor` old paint, gasoline fumes, and other solvents, even in fish and in drinking water. So Vitamin C and other substances that perform similar actions like green leafy vegetable and other high fiber foods become very important in flushing these dangerous heavy metals out of your body and keeping them out. They also help flush out excess or bad cholesterol. But enough about this "common wisdom" that apparently only alternative hucksters know--lets do drugs instead that cause terrible long term side effects without necessarily removing the cause of the problem.
Did I mention--Vitamin C is cheap? Like probiotics, Vitamin C is inexpensive. If doctors made this a regular treatment option, the cost would come down even more. But alas, most people have to be at death's door to get a C-infusion, which points back at the whole paradigm of Crisis Management. One would think (there I go thinking again) that immediately after surgery to remove cancerous material, when it was safe to do so, the patient would receive Vitamin C infusions as a prophylactic treatment to help the body itself fight and control and resolve any left over cancerous stem cells while simultaneously speeding the healing process. I guess I must not be exceptional enough to see the conventional wisdom of today's officially funded, inactivity regarding this matter.
Instead, lets wait till the cancer comes back and grows and grows and grows til you are a candidate for surgery again, and instead use cytotoxins that will kill every cell it touches, and not just abnormal cells like cancer. Yes, lets wait and see what kind of crisis develops; that does seem to be the S.O.P. (Standard Operating Procedure).
If you want this sort of thing now, you get to pay extra.
Next Issue: 3. Feeding the Beast--a total lack of nutritional support from the doctor or, "Friendly Fire Isn't." Remember what Hippocrates said about letting food be your medicine? Well once again, we have known that for generations. But we have to fight with the Western Medical Community over this issue constantly. Enter, the Warburg Effect.
Cancer Eats Sugar. This is what you will hear in the alternative healthcare community over and over and over. There has been a movement going on for some time to eliminate most processed sugars from the diet because it's seen as toxic. Over consumption of sugar is associated not only with weight gain and type II diabetes, but also with systemic fungal infections, which can affect things like cholesterol, blood pressure,and yes, cancer. In fact, we do know that processed sugars suppress the immune system in general. Even doctors are supposed to know this, but I'll be damned if it's ever been brought up like this, in any doctor's office I have ever visited. Actually I cannot recall this being brought up at all.
Also I was recently told that EMTs are taught that soda pop is good for you because it contains potassium (I hope that was repeated to me out of context).
Eating or drinking too much sugar curbs immune system cells that attack bacteria. This effect lasts for at least a few hours after downing a couple of sugary drinks.Webmd
mmmm have a lollypop and some death-cola anonymous cancer patient!
Trust me if you eat sugar and it suppresses the immune system, then it's also allowing viral and fungal cells a chance at colonizing your body in a bad way too. Sugar affects the entire enchilada.
"Cancer Eats Sugar". It doesn't sound very scientific when it's put like that, but its true. Cancer eats glucose. That was in part why I was getting the shakes. I have naturally low blood sugar and the tumor I had was eating the sugar in my body all up until I about fell over--literally. When you are low in sugar, it can make you cranky, because your brain runs on sugar, and your eyes can hurt because your eyes run on sugar --hence the relationship between your eyes and diabetes. It can make you feel stupid and mean all in one shot. And most especially, fatigued. I know without supplementation, I had to take a couple naps a day. Had to, not wanted to, as in I am laying down now or else I will fall over. (but that's for another diary about symptoms ignored by doctors). Besides, everyone knows (snark) that I laid around because I was lazy and fat. DUH!
I know that if the Cancer is scavenging the sugar then it's going to make you feel fatigued and this may cause more cravings for more (you guessed it) Sugar or High Glycemic Carbs. If the doctors don't tell the patients to resist the urge and why though--then I guess it means they have already marked that patient for death and maybe the docs will do research on them while we await the inevitable. Here--Have a cookie my little tissue bank.
If they--the doctor, didn't know about the Warburg Effect--would that be a better or worse scenario for you---the patient to deal with?
Too much sugar, especially processed sugar, suppresses your immune function AND it is the preferred food for cancer. Sugar is a double whammy against you. But do you know what happens when you go to an oncology dept? They hand out sticky sweets, doughnuts, fake granola bars swimming in HFCS, cookies, and ice cream. And not one word is mentioned about the Warburg Effect--the fact that cancer eats sugar. I had seen accounts by other cancer patients complaining about this, but I had hoped these were isolated incidents. Then it happened to me.
The irony is, the Warburg effect is exploited by doctors in order to identify tumors in various scans because of their extraordinarily high consumption of glucose lights up the tumor the way excessive electrical consumption lights up a city, making it visible from space. (sugar).
What is known is that doctors receive maybe 25 hours of nutritional education. They don't know and their ignorance in this and other topics is killing us. Not only do they not warn us about the Warburg Effect, but they don't even know about basic nutrition. In fact, most of you greenhorn health nuts probably know more than most long time medical practitioners. (A Lot More!)
Research has increasingly pointed to a link between the nutritional status of Americans and the chronic diseases that plague them. Between the growing list of diet-related diseases and a burgeoning obesity epidemic, the most important public health measure for any of us to take may well be watching what we eat. NYT
Between that and the flat out denial about the state of pollution in this country and how that effects chronic and terminal disease, and the total refusal to actively support and repair damaged immune systems, well--Houston, we have a problem. You see the point of supporting the body with good nutrition is to get more viable nutrients into the body so that it can operate smoothly, and this includes the immune system. Green leafy vegetables, healthy fats, and proteins, good carbs and much lower amounts of sugars, especially processed sugars and high glycemic carbs is key.
You bring in supplements and herbs to treat larger imbalances, because truly, the best way to get vitamins is from food. They are more bio-available in that form. But when you need supplementation, when you need a special diet, when you need herbs to gently deliver what you need at a higher dose, you also need a medical professional who is willing to work with you, willing to talk to you. This is especially true when one is dealing with a serious disease like cancer, or AIDs or MS, or Parkinsons, or conditions like TILT.
And I don't see that, except at places that cost more than the average blue collar person can afford. The irony is that this is considered one of two things: Cutting Edge Medicine for the lucky ones who can find a place that offers integrative medicine, or total hocus pocus for cavemen who believe in power crystals and magic 8 balls. So that many like myself are left with--go it on your own or don't do it at all. Remember this is a life or death situation here, so before you scream, "Don't do it at all," remember this is about quality of life and perhaps even finding a way to lengthen a life that is already full of stress, and isolated medically, and socially.
In some ways I am lucky. I know a lot more than the average person, and I have resources within my own family to draw upon. Most people truly are all alone when they set off on this path. Even with the support of family and friends, it has been scary, because like a back alley abortion meets refer madness in the 50s, all sorts of misinformation, and myths abound, spread by snake oil salesmen and medical professionals alike who are either ignorant, or just don't mind lying to you (for your own good of course) or for a profit. You meanwhile are forced to take what little knowledge and instinct you have and pick your way through an artificial mountain of bullshit.
Weeeeeee! Isn't this fun?
If it weren't for the regimen I was on prior to the discovery of the tumor, I have no doubt that it would have been a lot worse, so much so, that we might not be communicating this way right now.
Doctors and others are so quick to harp on this idea that alternative health care has no cure for cancer. But the funny thing is, Western Medicine doesn't have a cure either. And to focus on the first statement exclusively is to imply that western medicine has more than they can offer in reality.
So far, people have been quick to get me to sign release forms for my extra tissues after surgery to be used for research. But no cutting edge treatment options such as the ones I discuss above, have been offered to little ole me. These are used in special treatment centers (that often don't take insurance--cash only) or that take only the cadillac plans (ahem CToA) which puts this out of reach for the average patient. And we haven't even touched upon other alternatives such as medical marijuana or other herbs that can be bought OTC to alleviate symptoms, or even help the body beat cancer back.
And don't forget, we often get to do this to the sound of much ignorant disapproval by people quoting 20 year old flawed studies. Or we just do it alone, unable to discuss with even one qualified individual, the pros and cons of whatever substance or regimen we are trying. We fly in the dark, depending upon the anecdotes of the herbalists and patients before us, painfully watchful for any adverse affects, while simply trying to survive.
To me it looks as if poorer patients of chronic diseases serve as nothing more than living tissue banks that benefit the wealthy and the well connected. We are crowd sourcing a cure, just not for us specifically. Not only is that not fair but it's unethical on many levels, given that some very safe, effective and supportive treatments are available, and not expensive to implement. Certainly not more than a person forced to quit and go on disability and eventually forced to declare bankruptcy. Not more expensive than children forced to go without a parent, all their college money used for treatments not covered but that should be or just used to cover costs before a catastrophic cap. I perceive that there is a dysfunctional mode here, that needs to be addressed:
You cannot heal people while you look down your nose at them.
And
You will not find the answers in nature if you are looking down your nose at her.
And
You cannot heal people with catastrophic illnesses if you don't understand how best to support their body nutritionally as well as support their immune system.
We are not machines. We are not interchangeable. You cannot "fix" us. Healing is not a purely mechanical act, though you wouldn't know it these days.
Without the support and care of immunity and nutrition, your magic pills will give short term relief while causing long term deficits, leading to the need for more and more pills to fill in the nutritional holes left by chronic drug use, that are known to deplete a body of certain substances leading to nutritional deficits, mineral deficits, and a damaged immune system.
Examples: Steroids cause bone loss.
Prednsone--deprives you of B6, D, , C, Zinc, Potassium and Vitamin K. So this is a major hit to your immune system. Vitamin K helps support healthy gut flora, and is also involved in coagulation. Zinc is instrumental in cell transcription, see Zinc Fingers, Potassium is your blood pressure and also could cause an imbalance that could over time affect bone health, especially when combined with Vitamin D, which we know a significant deficit can be a risk issue for cancer and lowered immunity, and B6 is required to balance magnesium levels, as well as assists in the processing of fats and proteins. It's presence is necessary for the absorption of B12 (hello energy production) and red blood cell and antibody production (and that's just the start).
Aspirin deprives the body of Vitamin A, B Complex, C, Calcium, and Potassium.
Ever wonder why Methotrexate causes birth defects? It deprives the body of Folic Acid, a supplement gravid women are told to take to avoid tubal birth defects.
Do you take Tagamet? Do mosquitoes eat you alive? It deprives you of B1 or Thiamine which also helps you digest carbs, helps support your nervous system, and heart, and can help improve your mental state and you need it to help process other B vitamins like B2 Riboflavin and B6 Pyridoxine. Lost of B vitamins will also impact your immune system by reducing your body's ability to react positively in times of stress.
Tetracyclines: Vitamin K, Calcium, Magnesium, and Iron. This is why you don't give these drugs to pregnant women, or nursing women, because their children's teeth will come in yellowed and brittle.
The information above, unless otherwise noted, taken from Earl Mindell's Vitamin Bible--Oh yea and it's an old book. We have known about these things for quite some time.
It's another major DUH moment. If you are going to put patients on substances KNOWN to cause nutritional and vitamin and mineral deficiencies, that can in turn cause other health problems, then why not anticipate that problem and supplement before it becomes a problem? Why not be proactive instead of reactive?
And by looking down one's nose, I mean ignoring the small situations that eventually fester into chronic health problems, and that includes carcinogens/pollution, inferior, over-processed food supply, and all the attendant bigotries that play a part in the (lack) of quality of care for the poor, for women and for racial and religious minorities as well as affecting patients in the GLBT community or those who are over weight for any reason at all, as well as those who suffer mental illness.
Further More:
Each and every patient is a human being. A life. And if you don't treat us right, because you don't recognize our humanity, because of some hang up you have, that's on you. Don't expect me to stay silent over that shit either.
And whenever you use a medicine--remember it was a substance most likely discovered by a
folk healer long before there was a even a medical school to attend. It should humble doctors to imagine the pre-literate societies that provided herbs and other substances that benefited the whole world eventually, even the hoitytoity world of modern Western medicine. GO Figure!
Do you really think Bayer invented the use of Salicylic Acid? They just isolated it from White Willow Bark, a remedy used for centuries in Europe, maybe even aeons. And Digoxin? Isolated from Foxglove, another remedy used in Europe by cunning folk for heart problems. As an example, check this page out and scroll down to the list that shows herbs, their action, and the drugs derived from them or synthesized to mimic plant chemistry.
Some new cancer treatments are taken right out of ethnic herbal traditions such as the use of the Happy Tree, a traditional Chinese herbal remedy used for cancer, now being tested in Western Labs for cancer treatments, specifically leukemia and even ovarian cancer.
But but--Acupuncture barely works if at all says the true believer! And you know, it's just a 6000 yr old medical model that is partnered with TCM, Traditional Chinese Medicine. Those silly Chinese (snark) what can we expect of the culture that invented gun powder or toilet paper or magnetic compasses?
Even animals can find medicinal plants to eat all without your help.
So wake up already, and welcome to the rest of the world of regular people. Yea, we need doctors and nurses. But right now, there is a serious cultural problem within those professions that is compromising our quality of care and our ability to take the best from every sphere of healing and use it as a synergistic whole to support people, or maybe even heal them.
What do I mean by that?
You know that old saying, "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining."
Doctors are not gods.
Well Don't rest on your laurels and call that healing.