T R                                                                                                         5/28/04

Ever wonder what you would feel like if you were told you had a terminal disease, me to. Unfortunately for me I got to wonder before and after. Definitely not the same. That feeling of safety is forever gone. That comfortable feeling you have when trying to fall off to sleep thinking about the future, is replaced with, I wonder how long I will live, will it be painful, will I be scared?

4/8/04, Stage IV lung cancer is what I’m told. Tumor in my right lung, left humorus, right hip and possibly the right orbital, ( round the right eye). No early detection here, been at this stage at least 6 months prior to diagnosis.. I search out survival statistics. Average is 7to 8 months, less than a year. Whoa this ain’t good.

How the **** did I get lung cancer? I been runnin and hiking my ass off, doing areobic exercise, lifting weights since I quit smoking 18 years ago. I’m a 52 year old physically fit dude. How the **** did I get lung cancer? Interesting to wonder how but it don’t mean a lick at this point, unless, unless, I can somehow  get out of this mess then I don’t want to get back in it if I can help it. But first in my weird cathartic way I need to talk about how I felt upon diagnosis.

It didn’t really sink in at first. Even though I was anxious about it, it is still a wait and see thing and since life and death stuff is Monday through Friday you have time to wonder while waiting to be biopsied. Deep down you don’t need a biopsy, its just protocol, a necessary protocol that interferes with the speed you need to find out all the details. Lots of procedures and doctors on the front end of this type of thing.

When you get the results and are told yes it is what it is, it begins to sink in. What the **** do I do. Do I tell extended family, I mean I only have a few month to live, how could I not. I did pass on the burden and sincerely wish I had not. Family or no I took a little of their safety away. ( update, late spring 05-- they took their own safety away, mine with it.) I already knew they loved me so there was no point. So now its official and I’m a startin to get scared. I am mostly worried about my wife and son and how they will get on without me. My daughter will do fine she has a good support system. I like to think I play a roll in their safety even though I’m not much of a breadwinner at this stage. Oh yea I am scared for myself as well, big tuff guy split at diagnosis, the chicken.

Now at this point I am feeling weak in general, my arm is nothing short of misery I’m not feeling well, haven’t been for 6 months and now I’m beginning to get weepy at times, man what a pussy, I mean I am scared and I accept that I am but there has to be a better way of dealing with this. (Oh yea during this time there is a commercial with the song What a Wonderful World, dying or not that song will get to you. Any hoo, I start trying to learn all I can, knowledge is power and power brings control. Control is something one needs and I want control.

Alternative medicine is a thought, you know laetrile, coffee enemas, ozone therapy. I’m a hard sell but I need something to believe in and since I’m comfortable saying that mainstream medicine is economically driven and healing is not the primary agenda of doctors and the pharmaceutical industry would cover up honest cures in the interest of profits I have a hard road ahead. But first, I get my initial chemo treatment, ( I’m a way to scared to say no to chemo, I mean maybe, what can it hurt) Not to awfully bad, no sickness, though the second night through the third day I thought I was going to die, then that feeling was replaced with just sleeping, and then I was up, slow but up. Not to bad. Back for another treatment, but noooo my immune system (blood counts) are too low, must wait for another week or so. **** I’m wanting to roll on this. In the meantime I’m reading all I can, finally I stumble across something that I think will complement conventional treatment, ). Maybe it is just a sugar pill but I did my research and I believe. I start taking this pill ( supplement) that is designed to stimulate the immune system and three days into it I am feeling better, that was three weeks ago, and I have had two more treatments, dug some water lines and shored up the foundation in my home. I am feeling better, not at the top of my game but better.

So am I going to die or what. At this point in time,  I don’t fell like I’m dying, I am feeling like I can dig a ditch. You don’t die when you can dig a ditch. You die when can’t.

I start reading survivor stories, those are hard to read because most of them have little foot notes at the bottom. I read one survivor story that is talking about statistics. Lies, dammed lies and then there are statistics. I am now convinced that I have time to think, plan and fight. Finally in a better frame of mind.

I have an interesting footnote that will complement and clash with this web site. When I first got diagnosed I stopped cursing and gained a tremendous amount of humility and had no desire to bitch and complain, now that I’m feeling better I have started to curse again. And at some point I would like to write about the 9 Nine doctors that blew me off when I was telling them about the lumps on my arm,  ( unpdate late spring 05) the nine doctors didn;'t have my complete family cancer medical history, that can and does interfere with diagnosises, so maybe it wasn't all there fault there was a slow diagnosis.) I am thankful for the ninth 9th doctor who couldn’t care less about the lumps on my arm and had me scheduled for surgey to fuse my neck. If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have gotten that chest X-Ray.

Foot Note, I’ll be back

after I do my workoute

6/5/04

I have read that those folk, who doctors consider bad patients, those folks who are in denial and those folks who find their own control have longer survival rates. Yea, right up my alley. At this point I am going to argue and explain my way out of this, yea that’s it, but first I have to go over do it.

8/6/05

    Today I find it  extremely difficult to write so if I sound a little confused, allow me please, cause  I am floating above the keyboard.  On 8/4  I had new test.  For all purposes the only thing that is still active is the tumor in my lung, however, less active it is  The gateway lymph area, ( mediastinum) to the rest of my body the lymph area, ( mediastinum) that passed it to my  arm and hip and ? is inactive and appears to be resolved and there is no metatastic problems in my inerds and normal normal normal in all other areas in my chest and abdomen. There has been a "complete resolution" to my arm and hip and no mention of the right orbital.        How the **** did I go from How the **** did I get lung cancer? to how the **** did my arm and hip heal in 3 1/2 months.    There is a list that will take credit and there is a list that I am thankfull for.

    Since the onset I have been working for my wife and  my job for the last 100 days has been to survive, she wanted the product and I think I might deliver. So now I need a new job and that is to pass on my good fortune, not sure how but I'll work on it.  I'll start by thanking those that prayed for me.

So in conclusion I am again puttin all my eggs in one basket, of course leaving room for when I hack that tumor up to throw it in with the eggs

Foot note, please don't allow my arrogance to overshadow the humility in my undeserving soul.

I have read tons of stuff about cancer and learned a bunch. The short answer to my questions are , change. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and getting the same results”, No change, no change. My wonderings as to how & why I got and was being taken down by cancer is answered by one of the many changes I made,( which includes treatment) most of which I have already spoken of. However the one thing that I placed the least emphasis on was diet. I have always felt that meat was not necessarily good for you. I now feel that meat is not necessarily good for you. I was always told that fruits and vegetables are good for you. I now feel that fruits and vegetables are good for you. I never gave a thought about the detriment of cooking food and how it effects the enzyme thing within digestion. I now believe that eating nothing more than natural foods, fruits and vegetables, uncooked, are the key to good health and if you ate nothing more than natural foods, fruits and vegetables, uncooked, you would most likely thrive. I base this new found belief on my lifes experience, my reasoning,, my logic and   http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020121horne/020121toc.html and http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020122horne.21stcentury/020122toc.html  in that order and my transformation from, ill heath to best conditiioning and fitness, in my lifetime, (sans USMC boot camp, but there is still   time.

Now after commenting on the meat, and uncooked thing. Moderation in all things. Think of it as and on a curve, indulgences are sometimes tolerated in moderation. Indulgence as a way of life will kill you. Personally I’m shooting for what I believe to be the best success. Believing that I most likely will justify some indulgence I know I will stay fairly on track because I thought and think if I do not, the  Alternative is the Alternative

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020122horne.21stcentury/020122toc.html  were what tipped the scales for me, literaly, 70# in a year.

And also the fact that today I am healthy, yesterday I was not..   

        4/2/05            All the previous and a little better.  I really do feel that water played a part.   I am lucky that I live in an area that I have the ability to get natural water.   I often wonder if I had not had the ease of getting spring or well water would I have found a way.   Yes!!  I do believe I would have, & only on a hunch that it would be benificial.   Since I wrote the book for the purpose of passing on my good fortune, I have to, at least talk of options.

Get several five gallon jugs get in the car, and go find some. When it is realized that natural water is beter than water with clorine,  the powers to be will figure out something.   If you want to see the price of water jump, get some water.

5/8/05   All the previous and a little better. Been a year now, I have went from almost dead, to now.  I have changed my thoughts considerably.  I no longer care much for smokers.  They create problems for themselves and me and mine, they will argue their  right to smoke in the face of harming those who do not or are about to, all in the name of , "I need a cigarette".  The stuff I've seen,         you have no idea.

    I smoked and when I smoked I was an undisiplined person who only cared about satisfying a craving.  When I stopped smoking I not only left cigarettes behind.    Smokers

6/22/05  Saying the words,  "its never ending" is not at all like living it.

7/22/05

7/22/05     uh oh!      A little update here.    Got a few brain tumors happening. This brain thing is literally a new ride, I’m walking like I was when I drank, and to think I used to work at walking sideways. Forward and to the left. This is a usual  metastatic path. Brain and long bones ( humorus, arm), and pelvic area, hip) adrenal glands, (Kidney area) liver, prostate and a few million other areas, somewhat in that order are most often affected, so I’m following a normal path and one that previous family members have had, so its somewhat expected if not just understood. I( Just have to throw this in, it wasn’t expected until I recently found out other family members had lung cancer, far late to use in a proactive fashion but that’s another story. But to make my feelings clear if the reader has any medical secretes they have responsibility to pass that information along as difficult as that may be. The ramifications of not doing so is at most deadly, and on to non repairable.

One more, as far as a tumor muddling ones mind that is dependant on tumor placement, I’m OK there. The ranting and ravings on this site is a cultural, environmental, sociological family thing, one that I need to vent on, in my weird cathartic way,   AKA I was this way pre brain mets, however this site violates step 9., time to move on.  http://www.cancerrehabilitation.com/

Foot note to be placed here in years and ?