Ok so since last entry there is a bit of catching up to do, I probably should've updated sooner but whatever.

The Appointment

So the dreaded doctor's appointment rolls along.  Surprisingly he had good news for me.  It turns out that with this Tumor Marker Scan they had determined that the cancer had shrunk down to about half.  So from around 60 000 to about 30 000.  Now what those numbers represent I really can't remember, however the point is that it shrunk about half.  He tells me that it is expected that after next cycle another half should be expected to drop.  I went home with this good news.

Old Times

That weekend I ended up going out with a couple friends of mine to a couple old hangouts.  First we stopped off at this Italian shop that we used to go to for late night meals, one of many late night meal locations that we had.  Granted we didn't go there as late as we normally would have, the experience was generally the same.  After that, we ended up dropping by the old coffee shop.  For those who don't know, the coffee shop was where I used to hang out for hours and hours at a time before I moved up here to the suburbs and well before I got sick.  I used to spend all my time there sitting, chatting, drinking coffee and smoking, not to mention it was around the corner from my house and open 24 hours a day so I could catch my nightly drunken bar fights whenever I couldn't sleep.  Shortly after I moved however they passed that smoking ban and the coffee shop became a place of desolation.  My friends no longer hang out there anymore, with the exception of a few who happen to pass by because they live nearby.  The smoking room has been converted into a used book store (why the hell the owner of the coffee shop would do something so stupid is beyond me), and they now close at 12am.  So basically all the smoking customers, which were about 95% of them, are gone.  I don't even know why the owner bothers keeping that store anymore.  Anyways it was sad to see my old hang out in such shambles considering I've had so many good times there, but I guess things are bound to change.

Episode One

On the following Tuesday I went in for chemotherapy.  Everything seemed to have gone smoothly just like every other time.  On the way home my mother and I had passed by a grocery and picked up some food and even then I seemed to be ok.  Then I get home to eat dinner I my breathing is a little short.  After dinner a little shorter.  I figure I go to my room and try and sit it off.  My mom had taken off to pick up my step dad from the train station and so I was left to sit it out alone.  Sitting it off doesn't work as my breath begins getting shorter.  By now I realize that this isn't normal.  I phone my mother who immediately comes home.  She calls the hospital to see what to do.  The hospital suggests we call emergency and have me checked out.  So that's what we do.  It felt like day one all over again, like the first day of cancer when I couldn't breathe and was rushed to the hospital.  911 emergency came and by then I was really short of breathe.  Moving me made it worse but they forced me out into the ambulance anyways which caused me to nearly suffocate.  They hooked my up to oxygen and sprayed me several times with an asthma puffer.  I managed to tell them that as long as I leaned forward that I could at least stabilize my breathing, and although they wouldn’t listen to me at first which made breathing extremely painful, they eventually let me sit forward.  I was able to normalize my breathing somewhat while riding in the ambulance.  By the time I got to the hospital I felt a little better.  The first hospital, the local hospital, the place where I had my first round of chemotherapy.  The last time I was here I was disgustingly sick.  I thought I'd never have to see this place again.  Then a funny thing happened.  As they were assessing me with x-ray and blood work, I sort of just got better.  Whatever had happened to me just went away.  My breathing went back to normal and I was fine.  The only explanation for this "episode" as everyone thereafter would call it, was that I probably had a reaction to something.  But since it went away, they figured I could go home.

The next day I was fine but we decided to call the chemo doctors to let them know what happened just in case.  They ended up requesting that during the next session of chemo I stay overnight just in case this was to happen again.

Chapter One Complete

The rest of the week I didn't do anything special.  I pretty much just hung around the house.  I did however manage to finish the first chapter of my story.

Episode Two

So I stayed last night at the hospital and as it turns out I did have some kind of reaction to the chemo.  I started to get short of breathe again about four hours after the administered the chemo drugs, however this time I was able to notice it so quickly that it never got the chance to turn into anything serious.  As soon as I mentioned it they hooked my up to a little oxygen and gave me a few sprays of a puffer and I was fine.  Next week I'll be staying overnight again just to make sure.  They told me this morning that the tumor marker scan has determined that my count has gone down to about 12 000.  Good news I guess.

Thoughts

It seems that every two or three weeks something comes up.  There's always some kind of new complication that causes a big scare.

The snow came right on the break of December this year.  I'm sure this would have been a great snowboarding season.

*sigh*

There is a saying that goes something like this:  "Time heals all wounds."

..........What an emotional roller coaster this past two weeks have been.  After the surgery on my chest and the removal of the tumour, everything was supposed to be over.  And it all started with a visit to the new doctor.  They had run a CT scan on me shortly after the surgery and it was discovered that at some point just before the surgery, the cancer had spread to my liver.  It was terrible news.  The doctor had said it to me in a way that made it seem like he didn't know what to do.  He had basically told me that he wasn't sure if there was anything he could do for me.  That was when it all started.  I began to lose hope.  For the first time in a long time, maybe even the few times in my whole life, I lost my composure and freaked out.  I thought that I was going to die... I thought that this was it, that my time was up and that this was the beginning of the end.  I was afraid to tell my mother about my doubts because the last thing I wanted was to worry her any more than she already was.  I was already accepting death.  Then shortly after that, my fears became reality.  One morning I woke up and there was an intensely sharp pain in my midsection which quickly grew into a violent stabbing pain in just a matter of hours.  Right then and there I had already known, the cancer was beginning to grow.  I thought, here it is, I'm within deaths grip now, it's almost over.  The pain got to the point where the only thing I could do was sit keeled over after several powerful painkillers and remain perfectly still.  An inch worth of movement would send a lightning bolt of pain through my midsection.  I couldn't lie down, stand up, walk, nothing.  When my mother discovered me in pain she immediately rushed me to the hospital.  I was barely able to get through the scan because I was in so much pain.  Results of the scan confirmed everything I already knew.  The tumour had grown significantly in size.  By then I think that I had already given up.

Once I got a room in the hospital, a miraculous thing happened.  My entire family came together.  I have always had an extremely large family, but between them there was much controversy, many feuds, and many distances, but for my sake they all came together.  Many of them weaped when they heard what was happening and it took all the strength of my being not to show them the ocean of tears I was holding back.  They all had the same thing to say to me, that they would not let me give up.  They told me that the entire family was giving me all the support they could possibly give.  I always knew that I loved my family, but then and there I realized just how much I love them and how much they loved me back.  And it was then and there that it happened.  I decided that I can't die.  Not here, not like this.  I was no longer fighting this battle for me, but for my whole family.  I wanted to live so that I could spend the rest of my life thanking them for all that they've done for me and paying them back for all their love and prayers.  They became my motivation, my will to live.

Then something like a miracle happened.  My cousin and her boyfriend came to visit me.  They told me that his older brother and become a disciple of a Tibetan monk for the past couple of years.  The monk is a holistic healer who travels around curing people of different sicknesses and diseases.  Sometimes curing hundreds of people in a single day.  The kind of thing that modern medicine always looks away from.  They told me many stories about how he used bizarre and unexplainable methods to heal people of different things, and that two have my cousins had gone to him themselves and seen it work with their own eyes.  He managed to cure my one cousin of asthma, and the other of carpel tunnel.  Now when it comes to me, I always told people that I was without religion, but the truth is my family has always been part of the Buddhist culture.  The only thing was that it sort of got lost with the coming of my generation, since we aren't born in Asia.  Nevertheless, they told me that they had mentioned my situation to the brother and that the brother wanted to come see me.  A couple days later he came.  It turns out that he had been visiting many sick people in hospitals and such and helping with many different kinds of severe cases.  One such case was literally bringing an 85 year old woman out of paralysis and into physiotherapy, a feat which even the doctors couldn't explain.  When he came to see me I couldn't even lie down to sleep.  I was keeled over the hospital food tray just sitting there in pain.  He started by showing me a few fairly simple breathing exercises.  And then he slowly helped me stand up and showed me a few stance techniques which were a bit strange.  It was like a true miracle.  Within a few hours he had lessened my pain.  He had done more for me in a few hours then two days worth of painkillers.  Nobody paid this man to come see me, nobody begged him, nobody sent him, he merely came out of the sheer goodness of his heart and soul.  And he kept coming.... Day after day for the next week he kept coming back to my hospital room and taught me exercises and breathing techniques and suddenly the pain faded.  I was literally able to stand up and walk around again.  I was able to lie down and sleep, I was able to do stuff again.  Nobody could believe it nor could they understand it, not even the doctors.  The doctors believed that it had something to do with their stupid medicine, but my family and I knew better.  Between the disciple and my family's support, my hope and motivation was restored.  My family visited me like crazy.  Not a day went by where I didn't have at least five visitors.  Even distant family members that I was not very close with came to see me and give me their support.

And so once the doctors saw how much I had recovered, they felt I could go home again.  So now I'm home.  I've been doing all the monks exercises everyday and now there is no pain.  It's virtually gone.  I have yet to get another scan but I know that the tumour has faded, I can feel it.  It's true what they say I guess, a powerful mind can overcome anything.  I guess that's how Lance Armstrong beat this thing, and that's how I'm going to beat it.  I know now that I'm not going to die.  I REFUSE TO DIE.  I feel like this is no longer a fight, this is a war, and I have all the power and support of my family backing me up.  I can't lose.

A so the battle continues.  My family still continues to visit me, and the disciple makes his best efforts to come see me despite the distance he has to travel just to get to my house.  He saw me today and he seemed truly happy to see that I've recovered so much.  He has a truly genuine soul.  He told me that sometime next week his master is visiting Toronto so I intend on paying the temple a visit.  I now have much faith in my culture.  I believe not because it was a last resort, but because now I've seen proof that it's real.  I feel it in my own body the difference it has made in such a short amount of time. 

Anyways now everything is on the right track.  I'll be fine.  I know that not many people are interested in reading my blog, but of all the posts I make, I hope that people read this one.  I want everyone to realize how important it is to have love and support, and hope and faith.  Never give up on anything.  There's always hope.  And I also I hope everyone reads this because I want everyone to know how much I love my family and how much I appreciate them.  That's for now I guess, hopefully I'll update again soon.

Side personal note:

In these recent events I went through a lot of personal reflection and discovery and one of the things I've come to realize was about Nate.  I may have over-mourned his death.  It was the first time I had ever experienced a death so close and I guess I mishandled it.  But now is the time to let go.  In Buddhism it is bad luck to leave pictures of the past with the living, so I've put away Nate's pictures.  It wasn't easy but it was something I had to accept.

 I'm sorry my good friend but I have to let you go now.  You will always be in my heart and I'm sure someday we'll meet again, but it won't be soon.  I'll beat this thing, for both of us.  So goodbye for now.