TDetroit’s ramblings and nonsense

Wife had severe pain last night.  Throwing up and … boths ends were a lost cause…

anyway, started running fever, so she called the oncologist, and we were directed to the hospital.  they are focusing on the appendix.  possible surgery, even though it is not appendacitis yet.  thinking is that it will probably go that way anyway.  prob is the tumor.  to go in and to the appendecotmy, the tumor is right next to it.  so they will have to do 2 surgeries at once.

they won’t let her eat or drink right now, so she is quite grumpy.  bitches to everyone.

they let keep her shorts when she put on the robe, but they are real loose shorts and everytime she moves, it looks like real sexy lingerie.  cool.  I want to jump on that.

She says I’m a pain.

she is happy everytime someone asks her weight, however.  after the chemotheraly diet, she is now 5′2" 120 lbs.  real happy about that, and as I mentioned, her clothes are real loose, so I am happy about that…

So I told you about my friend who flew my wife to WI for an appointment with a nutrition specialist.

well, now Suzy has sent a package of supplements and vitamins.  It arrived on Friday.

Here’s the thing.  All last week, the old lady says she will start her new diet in a few days.  She even made a few small changes along the way.  But all weekend long (mind you, she got the package on Friday) she has been saying she will start her new diet on Tuesday (tomorrow)

WTF  it’s not like you are overweight, you have cancer.  no time like now to start the new diet and supplements that you think will work in curing you.

As we say in men world - shit or get off the pot!

OK, I had to get that off my chest - which, btw, is looking real good!

So my friend in Milwaukee bought my wife a plane ticket and an appointment to a Phd Nutritionist in there.  This is the payback I get for sharing my lunch in High Screwel.  See, my best friends mom was a late shift nurse and a remarried widow.  Second husband is a great dad to not only her kids but me too.  Anyway, she’s a horrible cook.  so they always went to screwel with what we Italians call Mangia Cake food (they eat that bread that looks like cake).  So Suzanna (whose name used to be Suzy- and I still call her that) used to eyeball my lunch.  since I had an Italian boy lunch (I had more than three grown men could eat) I would always supply her with good food - plus it’s always cool when an older hotchick is sitting next to you for lunch.

so, fast forward all these years later, and Suzy is married to a doc in Milwaukee - and he’s doing WELL - my wife get’s cancer, and Suzy buys her an appointment with a strange doc who uses nutrition to cure cancer.  now, I am not totally poo pooing this concept, but think about it, cancer usually means too late for nutrition.

what’s the protocol prescribed?  oh, just everything we talk about right here at bb.com.  get your vits, uses the individual vits according to problems that arise, eat fresh food, avoid processed foods, no mayo, less red meat and more clean protein, fish oil and salmon, etc.  I am already doing it all

I used to tell people that I wanted my fat included in my milk, because I paid for it.  Think about it, it is priced the same as low fat.  Now, all that cost to remove the fat and they increase the price of the whole milk to equal the price of low fat.  I paid for it, I want it. And I was like that about all foods.  But I am different, I grew up Italian, meaning I eat healthy food all the time, I just add unhealthy food to my diet as a treat.  so I can make that joke. 

My wife and my friends grew up "white" meaning they eat crap with crap on top.  All processed foods that mom can heat and serve in 3 min using a microwave.  My dad refuses to eat anything that has been in that thing, not becasue he believes it will kill people who eat it, but because the cook didn’t put in the effort to make the food worthy of his tongue.  and that is the gist.

 the doc told my wife that all meat you eat, whether red or white, should be cooked at 225 degrees until the propeer temp (medium well).  Never cook fast, because it converts the meat to carcinogens.  Never undercook, because you’ll die of food poisoning.  225 for as long as it takes.

I call this cooking as if you love the person who will eat it.  considering that YOU are one of the people who will be eating it, it is really bad if you cook too fast.   Lovin’ should take a long time (personally, I don’t think it’s worth it to make love unless you spend 45 min on the deed.) 

So, lesson learned from a Phd Nutrionist is two things:

1.  Never eat fast food (even home cooked fast food).  Make it all from scratch, eat a wide variety of foods to get your nutrients

2.  Mike is always right.  You never have the right to doubt.  OK, I’ll let you have the right to doubt, but you are still wrong.

The chemo that is. She got the results of heer scan after 3 treatments. The largest tumor was 8.5 cm (3.32 inches) in diameter, now it is down to 8 cm.  It seems like not much, but remember, direction is what is important, not amount of gains.  It’s just like body building.  The journey is what counts, not just the destination.

Some friends want to fly her out to WI for a consult with a Doc who believes that pickles and saur kraut can cure cancer.  Well, maybe chase it away (that kraut is nasty- Germans ?!?).  I am not thinking that some sort of magic machine can tell you which type of feermented food you should eat a lot of (and smell a lot like) to get rid of cancer. 

True, chemo is a disaster reaction, but stage 4 counts as a disaster.  Let’s blast it, and then decide the next step.

Eat healthy?  Duh!  but you can only lead the horse to the watering hole, I’d love to see you force him to drink.  same with the wife.  when you talk about eating healthy, she replies with "I do ", and then her eyes glaze over.  I don’t think she’s getting it.

list of foods to never eat even if a gun is pointed at your head (because what’s the diff)

McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King, Cola, soda, Mayo, tartar sauce, sour cream (with some exceptions), milk chocolate (as I eat a chocolate chip cookie), onion rings, pork rinds, chitlins (they smell), anything that comes in a box with celophane cover and microwave instructions, anything from a crock pot, anything where HFCS is list as the number 1,2 or 3 ingredient, anythihng fried in fully dehydrogenated or partially dehydrongenated oils, saur kraut, corned beef, sushi (i know, some of you like it, but come on, think about it…), canned soup (too much sodium)… more to follow.

I have a cousin who I don’t talk to much.  when we were little, he was the one who was always appointed to make I didn’t get into trouble.  so he taught me how to get into trouble…

 anyway, yesterday he calls.  he heard about my wife beeing with cancer, and wanted say something about that.  he also told me that a couple years ago he started distributing this berry juice - high in antioxidants - and wanted to give me a case for her.  it’s that expensive stuff that few people buy because of the cost, and the claims of the manufacturers that it will cure everything. 

it’s a network marketing thing, and they have their rallies where people stand up and declare that the docs told them they have 1  motnh to live, they started drinking the juice, became vegans and now it’s 20 years later and they are having sex 13 times a day.  it’s like an evangelist convention.

that’s ok, because I belive these juices do work and have high medicinal value.  I don’t know about the above, but I do know that you are better off for drinking these things.  and most people don’t buy because of the price, but if you think about it, it’s not expensive.  you have no prob buying a 90 supply of whey for $50, because that’s only 50 cents per day.  well this is a little less.  so it’s $1 per day for protein and antioxidants without a lot of carbs.  duh.  this is an easy one.

so we met at a parking lot we were both crossing, and he gave me a case of the juice.  it’s called mona vei.  I tried it out this morning.  it just tastes like really strong mixed berries.  didn’t get a chance to talk to the wife about it yet.  she was asleep when I got home and left before I woke up.  tonight I get home after she’s asleep, and she leaves after I wake up in friday, so it looks like saturday morning at the earliest.

The wife is going the process of applying for short term disability and then long term disabilitly from work, and now is applying for the same from social security.

 now that’s something you don’t expect to have to do.  but at least she is coming to grips witht he fact that she can’t drive do to narcotics and exhaustion and nausea.   it’s a start.   miss independent is going to have to learn some new things about dependency on others.

now we find out that United Health Care does not usually cover avastin.  i think the doc is more pissed than me. 

avastin, made by genentech, is a drug administered along side chemo.  it is not chemo.  it is an anti-angiogenic - that means that when cancer cells start to form new blood vessels to distribute themselves deeper into the human body, avastin kills the blood vessels before the cancer spreads.

the insurance co does not automatically approve the drug, your doc has to submit a predetermination to see if this will help the situation.  there is nothing to do right now except wait for 72 hours for them to decide.  and if they say no, there is a mail-in process for an appeal.  apparently these people haven’t read the research on avastin, or maybe they don’t know jack about adenocarcinoma.  anyway, I’m just ranting.

 doc’s office is also submitting a request to genentech to get us into their foundation, maybe they will give us this drug out of the goodness of their hearts, which would be cool, because the choice would be to go bankrupt paying for a drug that costs $10,000 per month.

so, I am making book, if you think it can’t get worse, put up your money, because I am willing to bet that tomorrow brings more bad news.

my sister wanted to take 3 of the kids yesterday.  when she came to pick them up, we got to talking about the cancer and the research she and my friend in WI are doing.  they have been searching high and low to prove the doctor wrong.

anyway, my sister mentioned something about how she had so much data, and didn’t want us to think she was weird so she didn’t bring it all to the doctor office when she came with us.  I think that got Audrey thinking about how these people are putting so much effort into the rest of her life.  she ran out crying.

it’s funny how you can ask if you are worth it.  most people think they are, but when someone goes that for you, will you really believe it.  so many people have put their entire lives on hold to either make her comfortable or find a way to make her live longer.  she is wondering now if that is fair. 

she’s done it for others, so it is fair.  that’s what it’s all about.  what goes around comes around.  give and ye shall receive.  never leave someone you like or love hanging on their own.  (of course the bad people can go to hell).  she is a kind and generous person who has given to others and not asked anything in return.  she has gotten screwed in the process many times, but now she is getting some real returns, she need not ask if she is worth it, she is!

We met with theoncologist today.  we brought my mom (the primary go to person for the duration) and my sister (a cancer survivor) with us. 

the long and the short is - there is no cure.  the cancer is too advanced.  there are close to 20 tumors in her liver and a few more in her lungs as well as the one in her colon.  he knows the lymph nodes are affected, but the only way to prove that is to remove one or two and and test them.  and even if it was negative, it wouldn’t change the chemo.

my sister asked about several other protocols.  radio frequency is used for 1 or 2 tumors 5 cm or less,to zap them, my wife has too many and some are too big.

embalism therapy is where you stop blood flow to a part of the liver to kill it and the cancer, in this case it would be the whole liver, so it can’t be done.

surgery won’t work, because it will only take out of the tumors, but leave too many others to be effective.  it might be necessary down the road to remove some troublesome tumors, but that’s about it.

radiation, might be used down the road for troublesome areas too. 

other than that, he will treat with chemo, and hopes to do that for a long time.  But the length of time will be God’s decision.

We asked about a second opinion.  he said it would be a good idea, but we were going in the wrong direction.  we wanted to talk to a surgeon.  He said he is a cancer generalist (colon cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer etc.) we need to consult with a colon cancer specialist for a second opinion to be of any value.  and he will go along with their findings.

 so that’s where we are.  chemo for 4 to 6 months, and waiting.

being a guy, we don’t memorize things.  but this morning while she was sleeping, I took the time to memorize some features.  she has a dropped ear lobe, hazel eyes, and I can put my ring finger and thumb around her wrist.  good news, no food (just IV) for a week, has made her tushy really awesome. 

there is a dimple on her nose, her eye brows are really thin (and I ‘ve never seen her pluck them), and a whole lot more that I can’t tell you about.