Enlightenment by way of Cancer

This is a blog offering information related to nutrition and how I am using it to sustain my mother's body through the late stages of stage 4 gastric cancer. 

I don’t claim to be a doctor or an expert. I am just really diligent at researching and finding information. Additionally, I am Chinese American so for those of you seeking an Eastern and Western blend in working with cancer, you will find that here. The purpose of starting this blog is to provide this information out there for those of you, who like me, do not want to be passive in the battle with cancer.  The information presented are a very personal, very grassroots approach towards not so much saving my mother’s life per se but to improve the quality of life of a terminal cancer patient.  

If you care to know a little of my mother’s background, please read on.

My mother is currently 63 years old. She was diagnosed with Stage 4 Gastric Cancer in January of 2012. She was admitted into LA County hospital on December of 2011. She had a Peri-Cardium Window performed as well as a Gastro-jejunostomy. Peri-Cardium Window is where they cut a slit by the side of your ribs in order to enter a tube that can drain fluid surrounding the heart, which she had. A gastro-jejunostomy is where they go in and tie a portion of the jejunum, which is the second section of your intestines. Her cancer was inoperable. It had spread to her ducts and her liver. She went through one a half cycles of chemotherapy before deciding to go a more Eastern route which was based more on herbs, nutrition and cultivation of the subliminal and unconscious mind through meditation and daily mantras. In August of 2012, her cancer had miraculously disappeared from both her liver and her stomach.  My mother, uneducated to the serious correlation between nutrition and cancer, immediately fell back on a diet of sugar based foods, processed foods with MSG and meat focused meals. She never believed she had cancer and for it to come and leave so quickly, losing her hair and a cycle and a half of chemo was not enough to change long rooted, conditioned eating habits.

In March 2013 her cancer had not only returned but it had silently moved its reserves into the colon, kidney and back into the liver. The tumor in her liver blocked all biliary functions. Therefore on April 16, 2013, two biliary drains were sewed into her abdomen cavity from the outside (one in the middle of the chest and one on the right rib) so that the bile could empty into two plastic bags rather than spew itself into her body slowly killing her. Unfortunately the procedure triggered a very serious bout with Pancreatitis which then mutated into Cholangitis. Atop this, a student doctor at LA County misread her opiate dosage and accidentally overdosed her by giving her 2mg of Dilaudid (20 times stronger than morphine) rather than 0.5 mg for her fragile and tiny 81lb frame. The overdose had to be reversed with an injection that caused her receptors to be blocked resulting in her screaming. 

50+ days ago I came back home to San Gabriel to be with my mother. I was meant to be here just for the weekend (as I work in San Francisco). The day after I arrived, she had to be taken to the ER for what appeared to be signs of jaundice which eventually led to the discovery that the tumor was blocking her bile ducts. In the past month and a half since I have been home (I have since taken a family leave of absence from work), my mother has been admitted into the emergency room on four separate occasions (blocked tumor, pancreatitis, cholangitis and dehydration) The total amount of time at hospitals comes to a little over a month. I have been by her side every step of the way. At her worst,  she has suffered nightmares, choking, loss of sensation and unbearable pain. She reached her lowest point when she had to be on a 24hr dilaudid drip and when she could no longer walk without the aide of a wheelchair. For a little over a month, every night bore uncertainty for the next day. 

We have had talks about the end, about the future, about the acceptance and about the hope. I have slept in her hospital bed beside her, in cold uncomfortable chairs in critical care waiting rooms, with my body half on her bed and half on a chair in emergency rooms, in sofa beds in a private hospital and on a small window ledge in her room at a public hospital. I have watched her deteriorate to not being able to walk three steps without collapsing, been woken up to her choking and unable to feel her hands, have held her while she has shaken uncontrollably and violently (due to the cholangitis infection) and have seen her turn into a zombie through a weeklong 24 hr dilaudid drip to combat the severity of the pain in her stomach. Unrelenting in my effort to nourish her body through nutritional therapy, slowly but surely, she began to vastly improve. Her energy level returned and she had regained the strength to not only walk but had the ability to go up and down stairs. Her pain subsided to a point in which she was no longer reliant on pain killers. Her nightmares went away. Currently she is not taking any of her pain killers. She was vomiting frequently but even that has subsided. 

Mind you, this is still cancer and so these improvements are still within the up and down roller coaster spectrum. However there are improvements and when one is tending to the garden of another human being’s life, such improvements are like coming across a small pool of water in the middle of a dry, barren desert.

I am starting this blog because take it or leave it, whether or not it is the nutrition, the prayers, the heart, the time or the love, something seems to be working. So here is a resource for some of you out there who may be like me, searching for alternative ways to continue the fight when all mainstream and traditional methods are no longer an option or else just want to be empowered with as much knowledge as you can sponge up. I don’t know how this blog will end but if there is anything I have had beat into my psyche during this whole tugging of the heart strings boot camp, it is the true understanding of the saying that life is truly not about the destination, but the journey.