Chondrosarcoma – ah shit, bob's sick

Thursday, August 20, 2009
6:00 pm

One unexpected pleasure that happened today was my buddy “Mac” dropped by the house today.  BTW, Mac’s not his real name, but that story goes way back and this probably isn’t the place to get into it, but I’m probably the only person that calls him Mac and that’s out of respect and a long term friendship. Even though we don’t see each that often, we have remained friends for years. His real name is Paul and it was so nice to see him.

Paul is one of those dudes you’d trust your life with (I know, I would). One of those special people you meet and just become tight with. Anyways, he stopped by to tell me about some mushrooms that grow on the birch trees here in Vermont. Chaga mushrooms. I had never heard of them before, he suggested that I do some research on them. So I Googled them and found quite a bit of info.

He said he was going to stop by with some tea I should drink before and after surgery. These “shrooms” have been used for medicinal purposes since the 16th Centruy (according to Wiki) and have a long history of cancer fighting agents. Yep, I’m going to try them … why not, what have I to lose at this point?

Paul also made other suggestions for fighting this cancer both before and after the surgery. After doing some research on his suggestions, I think he’s on to something. Here are some words for research.
Chaga Mushrooms
Reishi
Turkey Tails
Oyster Mushrooms
Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar
Apoptosis
Adaptogens

Part of the concept here is keeping a high alkaline body. The tumors can not grow in an alkaline environment. Makes a lot of sense to me. For both treatment and healing and prevention too!

So for me, this is for the prevention of the return of cancer (as opposed to radiation therapies), for you, it may be prevention in the first place.

Thanks Mac (and I say that with affection) … I owe you one.  This is definitely in my recovery plan.

Thursday, August 20, 2009
5:00 pm.

Well, I went for tests today.  In some ways it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. In other ways it was worse. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to work, the stuff they gave me was supposed to have “zero (0)”  side effects but that wasn’t the case for me. Call it coincidence if you like but I had a case of diarrhea like you wouldn’t believe. So much in fact that I couldn’t go to work the rest of the day. I felt drained, so I worked my way back home and took a nap (actually, several of them).

Besides leaving 3 small vials of blood behind (btw, the nurse that drew the blood was wonderfully skilled at her craft), the tests were all scans. The actual total time in the CT Scan machine was only about 5 – 6 mins. So that part wasn’t bad at all. They hooked up an IV that had 3 tubes of substances in them. One of them, the first I felt nothing … You’d never even know it was there. They took some scans and that was that. The second saubstance they put in me made me feel cold-ish … or it felt cold going in (more scans).  The third one was different. The technician told me it was going to feel like I wet my pants! … and you know what? … it did (more scans). What a strange feeling … none of this was painful, just a strange sensation.

They did a professional job. Before all this, I had to drink  4 – 8oz cups of some liquid at 7 am. So yeah, I had to pee, several times in fact.

We stopped for a coffee on the way out of the hospital (I hadn’t even had one cup in the morning), and that’s when the diarrhea hit me. Needless to say that wasn’t fun (is it ever?), and it prevent me from going to work, but I guess that’s not the worse thing to happen. A small price to pay for such great technology.
Thanks Dartmouth, you made that experience as comfortable as possible. You guys are professionals.

The purpose of these tests was to find out whether or not I can even have the upcoming surgery. Of course we got no results yet but we hope to hear by end of  Friday and if not by Monday for sure.