Updates + Natural vs. Chemical vs. Conspiracy Theories

Updates:
Well I had my next to last ABVD treatment on Wednesday, so now I'm on the up hill to feeling better, as it usually takes about 4 days of feeling bad, and a bout 4 days of slowly feeling better before I'm good.  Although I do have the following:

• Tired even on my good week, but only a bit.  The side effects of ABVD are cumulative, so I'm tired longer.
• Lungs are getting a bit exhausted, as it's a side effect of V, not terrible- but I could see that if I did get an infection and had to cough a lot- it would REALLY suck.
• I only have to do one last treatment.

Support Forums:

I frequent a Hodgkin's Lymphoma support message board on the internet, as the in-person cancer support group for my hospital is for basically any cancer (not specifically one) and Hodgkin's Lymphoma is not that common... and you know the group is made up of 98% old people who don't want to hear how not too bad I'm doing.  Whipper snapper. I don't comment or post on it much, but I read most all of it. But: I'm able to have the treatment I do because of my job by giving me full medical leave, and outstanding medical insurance, and when you put into consideration I was pretty healthy before hand and I'm relatively young (yes I remember when My Bloody Valentine had their previous album come out), however I have to admire some of the people who are on that forum, as many of them have children, can't take 100% off of work, or are a single parent or a combination of all of those. I can't imagine having kids and recouping with children in the mix. As I've said before: I'm pretty lucky in a lot of regards.  One of which is I only have cats to take care of (I swear I'll clean your sand-poop box eventually. To be fair I've always been pretty bad about cleaning the cat poop box), and I'm able to just simply sleep when I need to without an alarm (I won't lie: it's awesome... minus the cancer bit and feeling shitty). So  Hats off to those people going through chemo with kids and other life stuff, you just have to do what you have to do.  

I should also mention for newly diagnosed people: Positive mind set helps a great deal, in pretty much anyway you can get it, whether that be with "good vibes," prayer, sacrificial goat slaughter, wishing horrible things to happen to your enemies, or keying cars- really do try to stay positive however you need to.  It may also be worth mentioning: do what you need to do, so if say you have someone beating down your door to knit you a hat while on your head in order to get it fitted correctly, and it's not beneficial to you- by all means tell them to back off.  Basically: it's all about you and how you feel, being a bit selfish is okay.


Natural vs. Chemicals Vs. Crazy:
As I said in my last post: "the worst part of cancer is other people."  It really is true, the "natural cure no chemicals in my body big pharma money Nancy Pelosi is behind it all hiding the real cure to cancer" stuff.  No seriously, that Nancy Pelosi one was used by some whack job trying to convince me on the internet that there's a cure, but "they don't want you to have it."  Gah. From me:

"Cancer is a collection of a very broad group of a few thousand largely unrelated diseases all involving unregulated cellular growth; a disease of the chromosomes. It's NOT a virus, and all cancer is NOT the same. Hell, even within the same type of cancer, having a different stage of it can make it completely different, I won't even get into mutations etc. That's why there's no "cure for cancer" because that's just NOT the way it works. Treatment is based on protocols, and the patients go through the steps with their doctors watching carefully for the need to adjust treatment, to hopefully eradicate the cancer cells. Cancer research is about improving the drugs and protocols to get a higher success rate for that particular form of cancer."

Minus the fringe whack job people, largely why this is lost on people: lack of education.  Science education is terrible in America.  How do you explain to someone what a cell is who has virtually little to real understanding of what unregulated cellular growth is? Other than vaguely knowing what a chromosome is- how do you explain it in a meaningful way? Very slowly and concisely (it's the teacher in me- hence this blog) or you don't, you just fruitlessly argue with them on the internet perplexed as to why they keep bringing up Nancy Pelosi, and all of those people who have been cured "naturally"- that you can't find on the internet because they don't exist.  The cure rate for people who do alternative-natural  Hodgkin's treatments?: 0%

Here is an excellent article about Nutritional Supplements.

As far as chemicals vs. natural go: EVERYTHING Is made of chemicals, EVERYTHING.  Yes, yes, I know what people mean (or at least what they think it means) when they say that: no pesticides etc organic this and that- that's FINE, but everything is a chemical.  I was told by someone on the "internets" that they would never go through chemo and would "rather die than have those chemicals pumped into me"-  I sure as HELL let person have it, I don't suffer fools.  The article I linked above says it best:

"Another misconception is that if you are taking a “natural” product, it is somehow less likely to be harmful. Interestingly several important chemotherapies came straight out of nature. Taxol was isolated from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree, adriamycin was discovered from soil samples near an Italian castle, and vincristine comes from the Madagascar periwinkle plant. I’m not sure how that fits the idea that “natural” products are somehow safer than chemotherapy – in some cases they ARE chemotherapy. "

Many cancer chemotherapy drugs are synthesized from natural resources; plants etc.  There's a reason why scientist don't want to the rain forests to be slashed and burned, as there might be a marvelous cancer treatment waiting to be discovered. So in fact: they are "natural" or more accurately: "everything natural is a chemical."  The lines are not as clear cut as people think they are.

As far as diet: You should eat "anti-cancer food" because it's HEALTHY and tasty (well, most of it is), not because it will keep you from getting cancer (in an empirical reproducible manner blah blah), but so in the event that you might unfortunately get cancer- you will be healthy to go through treatment, and not have a terrible time of it.  A lot of the foods I eat are considered "anti-cancer"- heh, didn't work out so well for me, but I'm pretty healthy- and I ate those foods mainly because they're tasty (usually), and good for you.  I like pomegranates... because they taste good, and seriously good organic farmers market produce kicks ass.

I have nothing against naturopathy (heh, usually), but as someone on my my support forum said (sorry couldn't find the exact quote but his is it in a nutshell): "I'm a naturalistic healthy person, who took supplements and herbs and ate organic food in daily life as much as possible before I was diagnosed with cancer- but I'm not going the naturalistic route for cancer, because this is cancer not a cold."  The best way to spot a good naturopath: you go to them with a clearly serious condition, and they tell you to go to a hospital. I kind of chalk them up with chiropractors, some are great at what they do- but there's still the wacko's that think a spinal adjustment takes the place of all medicine.  I'm certain a spinal adjustment isn't going to help your cancer, and herbal supplements won't either.

As for the "trillion dollar cancer business:" Cancer is several thousand unrelated diseases, there is no "one cure" as it's several thousand diseases that needs treatments to be improved.  It costs so much BECAUSE IT'S A COMPLICATED BRANCH OF DISEASES. Basically: It's hard to fix, and like anything hard to fix- it's expensive to figure out how to, cancer itself doesn't exactly make it easy with mutations. These are people who don't understand what cancer even is, let alone treatment for it.

This is an excellent cook book for people going through cancer treatment or post cancer treatment.  IF you happen to live in a non-metropolitan area... good luck finding 50% of the ingredients.  However it is excellent.  On NPR the author stated:

"Does it taste good? If it does, eat it. If it doesn't, don't. Could this be more obvious? Well, you will be surprised at how much you will resist this seemingly simple bit of advice. "Oh, but I must eat X because of its anti-cancer fighting properties," you'll say. When you are in the throes of treatment, you don't really have to worry about that because, well, you already have cancer, and you are fighting the cancer by going through treatment."

As for nutritional supplements go, many people are surprised by this: my hospital and Doc are very open to them- you just have to run it by them beforehand, why?  Because it can interfere with your treatment drugs, and stop the chemo drugs from doing what they're supposed to do.  Many Oncology teams are open to nutritional supplements, because cancer sucks- they should know, it's their job to see it every day, and anything that can give you relief will help.


A side note for recently diagnosed people: 
You may have noticed I might be a bit "mean" to you- or at least very snappity, but really that's just me and my "do what you need to do" attitude. Really though- if you do have thoughts of doing a "natural cure" please don't- it WILL kill you.  Anecdotal quotes form people "cured" who aren't real, with a link to buy a book on "natural cures for cancer" is a pretty bad idea.  On the support forum I use, there's always a person every couple of weeks who inquires about a natural cure" for their cancer because they don't want to do chemotherapy, and always the members of the forum have to politely (heh actually most are not polite) tell them that it would be a "very bad decision."  Having cancer is scary (duh)- but don't let it cloud your judgement, and make a VERY bad life altering decision.