Another week of turmoil.

We finally made it the One of Kind Show. I was exhausted for some reason, woke up in the afternoon and insisted we go. Let us not miss this opportunity. We got there, rented and electric scooter and rolled inside. The scooter was the best thing we did. I even took my oxygen tank to emphasize the point.  We lasted about 2.5 hours at the show, then made our way home.

I was amazes at the rudeness of people regarding the use of the scooter. Some cut you off, others made comments just loud enough for you to hear, others did not get out of the way. All very interesting, and unnecessary. To make matters worse, it was a terrible show. I was standing in front of a painting at one point when another vendor showed up and the started talking about this that and another including the show itself. I stayed there for quite a while admiring the painting, but no one came to ask me if I wanted to buy it. I was not about to get out of my chair. Not the easiest thing to do. I left.

I have been knocked out for the couple of days. The doctors have reassured Janet that the show is the reason. I am eating well, and drinking not bad. One does not go from eating to dead overnight. Janet woke me up this afternoon to eat. It was very difficult for me to even open my eyes. Same thing this evening. Come down for dinner. Could barely open my eyes, so stayed in bed. Could have easily stayed asleep all night.

I woke up around 11:30, suddenly awake and lots of energy. Janet decided I should take advantage of the energy to update the blog since so many people are concerned by the lack of communication.

I must say it is a very strange feeling that I am going through. Quite scary on one level, well, on any level you can possibly imagine. Not sure where any of it is going. Janet keeps asking me what is going on. The simple answer is I am dying and all the thoughts and tribulations that go along with that. Sounds like a simple process, but get complicated really fast, and really does not explain everything. Is this a waiting game? Wake up in the morning and just sit around and wait to see what happens?

After my exceptionally brilliant piece on people visiting me, we are are finding ourselves cancelling visits. Cannot handle the conversation. We have at the very least, curtailed visits, limiting them to something we think we can handle. All very confusing to us, let alone to those wishing to grace us with the presence.

The blog is helping a lot with thinking through things. I have a visit with my psychiatrist this Friday, see how that goes. I am looking forward to it. There are a number of thoughts going through my head that are linked to the legacy post which I have promised and yet to deliver. It is coming, I promise. Have to get the thoughts in order. getting more complicated as we move forward.

The blog is getting very big, and we are running into technical issued. You may find it down sometimes. The techs are doing their best to keep it up and running. I am also trying to find a podcast from a CBC interview that talks about the fact that we shuld be preventing cancer, and not cure it since there is not cure for it. I have mentioned that many time before, but he has accreditations behind his name which makes him an authority so we have to listen to him. Yeah for accreditations.

All this to say I appear to be good. Blood pressure where it should be, blood counts where thy aught to be. We will get past this exhaustion thing as well. We are also going to try and get a handicap sticker for the car. I guess we can use the oxygen as the excuse. It will be good to have one. You get access to all the handicap parking spots, and can park just about anywhere you want. I am not driving any more. Do not trust the reflexes. I may also not be able to lift my feet to reach the brake pedals fast enough. Janet can take advantage of it.

All for now.  Good night.

What to say. It has been a tough couple of weeks. I started becoming tired, almost as if I was on the original chemo regimen and started spending more time in bed. Very lethargic. Lost the will to do anything almost as soon as the will to do something emerged from the depths.

I started spending more and more time in bed. Wake up in the morning, have breakfast, maybe drive Janet to work. Shop for food a bit, then come home and collapse in bed. Sleep from ten in the morning to around two in the afternoon. I thought at times I was not eating enough, or drinking enough water. Increased both those. Got hit by bouts of nausea. Took pills for that.

Fetneh kept insisting I go for acupuncture to increase my energy levels. I kept promising to go, then forget the promise made. Almost as if I did not have the energy to go for the one thing that might just increase my energy.

No one was very happy about this. Janet had to almost accept reality. She could not do anything about it. Kept encouraging them to get on with things. Make a plan, everyone said. Set up a routine and do it. It does not have to be complicated. Just start doing things. I am doing things, I am sleeping. You can bet that put a smile on their faces.

I took my daily sleep last Friday. I had the shivers while lying under the winter comforter. We are in fall mode, nowhere near winter. I should not be cold. I closed all the windows. Still had the shivers. They kept waking me up. I finally roused myself around three in the afternoon. I was hungry. A man has to have his priorities. I was also in pain.

Oh yeah the pain. I have started having these pains along the bottom of my rib cage. It turns out they are due to an inflamed liver. Could be a good thing or not depending on whether the tumours are getting bigger (bad) or smaller (good!). Tylenol 1s take care of the pain rather nicely thank you very much. I pop a couple of those, get dressed and make my way tot he kitchen. I am still shivering.

I am out of breath by the time I get down there. I may have neglected that part of the narrative. I have running out breath a lot as well. Say a couple of words and take a few breaths. It comes and goes. There does not appear to be rhyme or reason for the effects.

I get myself something to eat and am still shivering. I am so dense these days. It suddenly occurs to me that I may have a temperature. I go back upstairs to get the thermometer. We have one of those units that you stick in the ear. It responds in seconds. I register 38.5C. I am supposed to go to hospital hen I hit 38. I decide this is an anomaly. The T1s will take care of it anyways. My temperature goes down as the day progresses, hitting almost 37, An anomaly it may have been.

Janet is in New York on business and to see Devin. She left n Thursday morning. She has arranged, or the friends arranged to come look after me. Diana is coming to feed me on Friday night, and Nancy is doing the honours on Saturday. I have been cooking up a storm of late and find this very amusing. Given my level of fatigue, breathlessness, and fever, the rescue is very welcome.

Diana, Andrew and Leona being dinner over. I love teasing her kids. They are extremely bright and rise to the occasion brilliantly, not shy to defend themselves under my relentless attacks. Diana does not have to step in to defend them. They do an admirable job. They also take the teasing in the spirit it is intended in. We have a good time. Andrew wants advice on what sort of computer to by. He wants something zippy, fast, a computer that will almost read his thoughts. Come on instantly. Oh Andrew, good luck with that. Speed is so relative to your experiences.

I am obviously done for, and they take their leave. Leslie has come home to keep me company. I feel bad, because I am headed straight to bed. She is not to be deterred from her objective and insists on staying home.

Saturday morning sees me with a temperature of 37.8. Sigh of relief. A couple of T1s will, and do take care of that. I go to the market but do have the energy to walk around. I come home, and go to bed. This is getting ridiculous. Wake up a lot later and start doing stuff. Pain, breathless, getting really frustrated. I have a telephone conversation with Janet. She is having a fine time. Devin is doing well, having a good time at The New School.

Nancy calls to confer about dinner. Pasta it is. I have cut down on my eating. Severely cut down to avoid stomach aches. She will cook it when she gets here. I take my temperature. Yikes, I am back at 38.5. Nancy will take me to hospital after dinner. Nothing worse than going to emergency on an empty stomach. They do not have decent food there. We eat, with Leslie coming home and joining us. She stays behind to clean up. Nancy and I drive to the hospital. She drives, I go along for the ride.

I bring all my pills with me. I have one Chemo pill that I have to take at 8AM and 8PM on Fridays and Saturdays. We arrive at the hospital at 8:00PM. Walk up to the triage nurse. She is a bit brusque. Are you here to see a doctor. I am a bit confused by the question. Not sure what my options are. Stammer something like, I guess, maybe, sure. She is getting impatient. Are you here to see doctor or a patient. Clarification. Oh a doctor for sure. I look at Nancy. I don’t look sick enough. She seems to think I am healthy.

I take a seat next tot he nurse and start answering her questions. She takes my vitals. My temperature has not budged. So I am sick. She is much calmer now and processes me. Nancy and I sit in the waiting room. We are barely settled when I get called in to register. I am also told it is safe to take my pills. I take the pills, register, get my wrist band to make sure everyone knows I am a genuine sick person. We settle again in the waiting room. There are maybe half a dozen people ahead of us. Not bad for a major downtown hospital on a Saturday night. Should not be that long of a wait. We are called in almost immediately. Nancy is impressed. I make sure she comes in with me. Nothing she has not seen or talked about.

We are ushered into a private room just beside the nurses station. I like hearing the action and conversations. There is nothing worse than being secluded while in emergency, you feel as if they have forgotten about you. They come and do blood work, request some urine. Nothing unusual. They are prompt and friendly and young, so young, and very pretty. As Judy said, I am not that sick. Dr. Quinn comes in to talk to us. They will do a CT-Scan of the lungs, ultrasound of the heart to make sure there is no water around it, more blood work. The original blood work has come in negative indicating there are no infections. They took blood from my Port-a-Cath. They want to take some more from my veins to make sure the Port-a-Cath is not infected.

Nurse comes in with two very large vials to get more blood from me. They assure me I have enough. She pokes me and takes her samples. They will be used to grow cultures in the lab to make sure I am truly free from infections. There are a lot of people with colds around us. The doctor comes back. The CT-Scan machine is not working. They will take a chest X-Ray instead, looking for signs of pneumonia or other items obstructing the lungs. They still want to do the Scan which will find things that the X-Ray machine cannot see, such as small blood clots that may have made their way into the lung. They do not think there are any since I am taking a blood thinner, but I am a critical case and they are not willing to take any chances.

Everything happens pretty quickly. By midnight, they have decided I should stay in the hospital for observations. The X-Rays show a number of metastasized cancer cells in both lungs. From what the doctor says, I am guessing more than before. I thinks her words were there are a lot of mets in your lungs. Nothing else though which is both good and bad. Good which means I am free from infections, bad because they have to keep me to do a Scan during the day.

Another doctor, Dr. Kimberly Bremmer comes to visit. Internal medicine. She will look after me during my hospital stay. The general consensus appears to be that the Scan will also reveal nothing. They feel that all the symptoms I am showing are a result of the cancer getting worse. The information leaves me a bit numb. Nancy and I hold hands.

I am in a room by 2:00AM. A semi-private room was all that was available, and no room mate. Time are tough. Leigh and Sascha are out on the town and decide to join me. Am I able to take visitors at that time of night. Sure says the nurse. They get there by 2:30 and spend an hour with me. I have to kick them out. This is just slightly past my bed time of 9:00PM.

Dr. Bremmer visits me in the morning. She is with a retinue of interns and a more senior Doctor. They are all very serious. VERY SERIOUS. No smiles from anyone, except Dr. Bremmer. They go over my situation.  Sunday will be a day of rest and observation. The Scan will take place on Monday. Cannot see the future beyond that.

Nancy and I spent the night texting with Janet, Leslie, Fetneh, and Judith. It was almost comical. Hospitals have given up trying to stop us from using our cell phones. Sunday morning saw more of the same, adding emails to the mix as everyone was kept in the loop about what is going on. My fingers were getting sore. Nancy came back to keep me company and also to bring me my phone charger. Janet was on her way back from New York and would be at the hospital around 2PM. Nancy had to leave by lunch time to take Lilly (her daughter) to her riding lessons.

David Jang dropped in to keep me company. Janet finally showed up, as did Diana, and Leslie of course. The traffic of eMails and texting finally came to a halt. It seemed so quiet all of a sudden. I sent Janet and Leslie home around 7. Janet is not feeling well and could use the rest. I was going to sleep anyways. David left around 6. None of us wanted to discuss the worse case scenario.

I had to stay awake till 9:PM. The nurses had to come around and make note of our vital signs.  No temperature, pressure OK. No surprises. My nurse is very charming and we have a long chat about things in general. She leaves, I close the door and try to sleep. Did not have to try very hard. The bed is very uncomfortable, but it matters little as I drift in and out of sleep.

Mount Sinai hospital where I was, is attached to the Princess Margaret Hospital. They all have access to patient files at each other’s establishments. The doctors at emergency and at the hospital were fully up to date with my condition. I was very impressed with their service, professionalism, and general conduct. I was disappointed by their food. Hospitals can surely do better. We are all told about the dangers of proceed foods, and yet are being fed stuff like Rice Krispies and 1% milk as part of a healthy diet. There is something seriously amiss here.

The Scan takes place on Monday morning. The results are in by 2PM. As I keep telling people, I would be a healthy person if it wasn’t for that small matter of having cancer. I am free of infection, blood is clean, lungs are clean, heart is healthy, all organs are functioning properly. Except for the mets. that are having a jolly party.

The title of this entry is Not Enough Words. We are all a bit numb at the news and are not sure what to make of it all. Do I have still have two years in me? More? Less? Janet and I have decided it is time to make some plans. Decide what we want to do and do it.

My father died in a rather ferocious car accident in 1999. The doctors at the hospital reassured us by saying that he did not suffer, that the brain shuts down in the face of huge adversity. So it is with us. There are no thoughts going through my head. The brain shuts down. Every once in a while you wake up and go, oh yeah, I have to think about this, and the brain shuts down again.

There are not enough words to describe what we are going through. Me, my family, my amazing friends who have rallied around me seemingly oblivious to my obvious shortcomings.

I was diagnosed with colon cancer in August of 2009, had an operation in September 2009, and have followed Chemo treatments since. 18 sessions of FOLFIRI, which I am told is pretty invasive. I lost a lot of my hair, though not all of it, suffered from bouts of fatigue, hand and nail discolouration, cracking nails, and nose bleeds. Not a bad set of reaction. Quite mild in fact. I do believe my immune system has a lot to do with the reactions I went through. I also believe that the immune system was pretty fed up with being taken advantage of for so long ad was getting ready to give up on the whole thing.

My very loving sister mused out loud one day, that there may be reason to think that I should not be alive given the rampaging nature of my cancer. Two pieces of my colon are gone, as is a small section of the small intestine. It was touching the bladder, so a small piece of that is also gone. Meanwhile I still gave cancer cells in my pelvic area, both lobes of the liver, and legions in one of my lungs. The cancer has made itself quite at home. My sister may not be wrong, and she did not make the comment to make me sad or angry or anything. It was a comment that commended me on my positive attitude that had carried me through this far defying the odds.

What is positive thinking? The book, the Secret, talks about it as concentrating really hard on a topic to invoke the powers of the universe. In the latest stuff I have been watching, the videos of Dr. Bruce Lipton, it involves the ability of changing the very nature of your cells and genes.

You get fired from a job and can see new doors opening before you. Don’t worry, it was a lousy job anyways, better times are ahead. A storm rips your house apart, and you can see renovations coming up. Time for that new bathroom you were dreaming of. and the insurance company gets to pay for some of the repairs. A cup half full at all times. There is a cartoon in one of the New Yorker magazines of a guy going through the desert, obviously dying from lack of water and all he sees are a bunch of glasses of water that are half empty. I am not sure how this link will be good for.

I have always been a cup half full type of person. Very few things have taken me down so completely as to be powerless. But the above examples are easy to talk about. What constitutes positive thinking when you have cancer?

Is it a question of thinking the condition into submission? Surviving for longer than expected? Smiling and laughing your way to your inevitable demise some point in the future? Making light of the pain, the discomfort, the disruption of your life and that of other around you? What is thinking positive in relation to cancer or any other chronic condition? Will the condition go away?

Everything I come across on this subject seems to believe that we can make changes to either our environment or our bodies through the mind. If that were the case, I would suggest we all put our minds together on Monday morning at 9:00AM and think about child poverty and it will go away. It will be solved. Let us wake up every morning and concentrate really hard on our bodies to never get ill. To live longer and healthier. If the mind were truly in charge, we should be able to accomplish all these feats in a flash. No more poverty, pollution, murder, hunger and any other ailment that plagues the world at the moment. To say nothing of the end of chronic conditions. We would just use our mind sets and prevent them from happening in the first place.

Baha’is in a number of Islamic countries are being persecuted. Baha’is in Iran particularly are vilified and persecuted beyond reason. Elected leaders are jailed regularly. Their assets are confiscated. They are charged with being spies for Israel. Our headquarters are in Haifa, Israel. They were moved there when the area was under Palestinian rule. We are not spies. Our statues forbid our participation in local politics. Egypt has issued national identification cards without which you can rent apartments, get jobs, open bank accounts and so on. You basically cannot live without one. They have listed only three religions on the cards, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Baha’is took the government to court. They are effectively asking us to lie about our Faith. We requested that another option be added: Other. The request was refused, the court case lost. We are persona non-grata.

Whenever Baha’is are put in jail, we are asked to participate in a version of group prayers. The prayers take place in the privacy of your own home, but we are all asked to pray at a particular time, on a particular day in the hope that the power of all the prayers being said at the same time would invoke some sort of mercy for those jailed. My positive side says that maybe the prayers are working as things could be worse for the prisoners. On the other hand, none have yet been released.

Reality seems to dictate that there appear to be other powers at play. Powers beyond our us. Beyond our ability to influence them in any way. I was sure I would not get cancer. My mother died of it, but none of my siblings were affected. Yet here i am dealing with the condition. I am told that part of my success at dealing with things, the lack of huge Chemo side effects all have to do with positive thinking.

I know I have a good attitude. I am laughing a lot, joke around, and generally try to make the best of it. I keep telling people you have two choices to make, you can happy or sad. I tried the latter. It did not work for me. I am going to be happy as this condition evolves. Think of it this way. I want to make the best of the remaining years. Whatever time I have left, be it 2, 5, 10 years or more. Does not matter. I have a limited amount of time to spend with my wife, son, family and friends. We all deserve to make the best of it. We will talk about everything. Life and death. Good things and bad. The discussion is important. The conversations vital.

It is also vital that we be happy through it all. Is that positive thinking? Will it stop the spread of the cancer? I doubt it. Is that a negative expression creeping in? Not really. But we, collectively, wife, son, family, and friends will make the best of the remaining time.

I went to Montreal last weekend. It was a dual purpose weekend. The first was to see Fetneh of course. We spent three days together. The second was to see Hong Lan and continue our eduction, more specifically, my education.

I arrived on Friday afternoon after an excruciating time with the security people at the Island airport. The security lady did not accept the letter from the hospital that alerts them to my scissors. I need the scissors to cut the flange that holds the bag in lace. I do not need it all the time. I went through a period where my stoma was slightly inflamed which required trimming of the flange before sticking it to your body. This requires scissors, sharp pointy ones.

She did not accept that. Nor was she happy with the can of air freshener I carry with me. Much needed that can. Burping my bag, the art of subtly releasing the gases that collect in the bag, also releases an odour that could be used instead of fire alarms. Whole countries can be vacated to avoid the smell. Buy a smaller can she says. No such thing available, I say. Nothing doing. I lift my shirt up to show her the bag. I need the scissors for this. I understand she says. Why, do you have one of these? Well, uh, no. Then how can you possibly understand? I ask to see the supervisor. She is the supervisor.

She decides to make a couple of phone calls. She comes back with a photocopy of my letter, writes down my name and telephone number on it and the fact that I have a pair of scissors. We then tackle the can of air freshener. There is no way you can take that on board. I lift up my shirt again. This bag is full of shit. I am not swearing at you. Just that it is. The burping will inconvenience all the other passengers. I am past the point of embarrassment. People can look at my bag all they want. Other passengers are going by. Some stare at you as if some sort of terrorist evidence will leak out. Others ignore, or at least ignore the situation and walk through.

The security supervisor lady finally writes on the paper that I also have a can of air freshener, taking great care in writing the brand name on the sheet. I am not totally sure what the purpose of this paper is. I would hardly advertise my intent if a terrorist internet on blowing up a plane of ten passengers headed to Montreal to celebrate 9/11. I was sending a package to someone a number of years ago. The post office clerk made me fill out this very small green form. Maybe 5cm square. She wanted me to put my name and the contents on this form. Nothing really fit on there. I asked what this was about. She says they would need to identify the package if it blows up. I asked her what her think this tiny piece of paper would survive the explosion, and what makes her think I would put down the right information if there was a bomb inside. This was previous to 9/11. She just shrugged. Rules are rules.

We often put these rules in place as if they mean something. The security person at the airport has a piece of paper now that will tell everyone that she knew I had a pair of scissors on me as well as a possible incendiary device. Yet, she let me on. How does the piece of paper protect her? Or help in any way? Or have any purpose whatsoever?

I am finally allowed to go through with the scissors and the can of air freshener. 30 minutes of my life wasted.

I arrived in Montreal around mid day. I go for a walk. It is a nice day. I get a bite to eat at Basha’s. There is a couple behind me talking about work. She is speaking in English, he replies in French. There is proof positive I am in Montreal. The strangest part is that she speaks with a French Canadian accent. I have a light lunch and just observe people milling in and out. I am to join Fetneh at 6:30PM at Mahin’s for a Persian meal. Mahin has gone to extra length to make sure all the food is perfect for me. Organic meat and all. I go back to Steve’s apartment which he has kindly lent me and lie down. I have a lot of time ahead of me.

I decide to walk and see how far I get. Not a fast walk, but a gentle stroll stopping once in a while for a coffee and water. I am exhausted after two hours and not feeling very comfortable. I take a cab to Mahin’s to get there on time. The meal is delectable. There is way too much of it and I gorge myself.

We leave and I get back to my place to rest and prepare myself for Hong Lan the next day. I overdid things today and am going to pay the price at some point.

That point is not too far away. I have a restless night and develop a small stomach cramp just to the left of the liver. I also have pains along the bottom of my rib cage. These come and go and have there for a couple of weeks. Finally, I seem to be suffering from the beginnings of nausea which happens very rarely. I take a couple of Tylenol 1s so I can sleep, and a nausea pill in the morning. I carry a pharmacy with me at all times. I take a cab to Fetneh’s office and get there on time.

Hong Lan is gracious as always. She makes me watch a two hour video from a Dr. Bruce Liption. The basic message of a number of these people is that a positive attitude helps in fighting whatever it is you are ailing from. The cancer card is played since Cancer is at the forefront of all current conditions. You also feel very uplifted when watching the video. The message is positive and it appears to make sense. The seems something innately right about what he is saying.

The video goes into a discussion about genes and how they do not control our bodies as originally thought. The Genome project lists only 34,000 genes instead of the expected 200,000. The conclusion they have come to is that cells to the actual controlling of everything and we are understanding more and more every day the mechanisms used by these cells to do their job. Genes create the template upon which cells are created.

How are genes distributed to a new born child? It appears that the distribution starts taking place two months before conception. The thoughts, level of participation, attitude of the parents help determine how much of the father and mother’s genes appear in a child. It all sounds very cool. Two months before conception? What about accidental pregnancies? Too many questions arise and the original question remains unanswered. How is the distribution of genes determined? We still do not appear to know conclusively. Why do girls look like girls and boys like boys?

The discussion on the nature of cells was quite detailed. The only discrepancy tat I can see is what activates the cell to play its role. It is one thing to say that a cell receives a signal and acts accordingly. It gives rise to the question about how the signal gets to the cell. How does the body decide what signal goes to what cell? A bit of magic perhaps.

The world of appears, I have always imagined, works a lot like the body. A brain addressing and sending signals to parts of the body that are required to perform a task. All the parts of the computer have an address allocated according to predetermined rules. A signal is sent to a device at a particular address which then responds and behaves as expected. Once in a while, a device gets corrupted and ceases to respond and we have a general failure of the system. The signal that is sent to eh device in question is bidirectional. The device responds initially by sending a signal back confirming that it received the signal and outlining the nature of the orders it has received. No room for ambiguity here. Doe the body behave the same way? Are there predetermined addresses for everything? Who or what has decided the order of things?

The video also talks about nature vs nurture, and decided that the two work hand in hand. We are also introduced tot he concept of consciousness trumping both. We assume that what is written in us in our first years particularly are etched in stone. It turns out, as some of us have already discovered, that everything can be rewritten. The term of writing tapes is used to illustrate the point. The tapes governing your life are written pretty much in the first 6 years of your existence. These tapes can be rewritten. You can also, through the powers of consciousness, rewrite the nature of your genes. Consciousness trumps all. Positive thinking is the ultimate message.

I spent 7 hours with Hong Lan. I was exhausted by the end. We came out of the day with three action plans. I forget the third, so convenient n’est-ce pas? The first one is to turn this blog into a book. I will have to talk to Sharon Singer and Shawn Smith about that. The second is that I should pursue my picture taking more aggressively.

I was supposed to visit Mehran and Noushin at their farm in the Eastern Townships on Sunday. We rented a car for the purpose. The family has been fighting a cold for a little while now. It seems they have all sharing the germs. Mehran was still ailing and we could not go. Too bad. I hope he is feeling better. We might reschedule the visit for my next visit to Montreal. We kept the car and decided to run a number of errands for Fetneh. Stuff she would normally do by bus or taxi or with someone else who has a car. We also decided to pay a visit to my mother’s grave site. I said I have to prepare her for my visit.

We never made it tot he cemetery. The Montreal cemetery is on the mountain that is located at the centre of the city. There was a bike race and all access tot he mountain was blocked. We went in circles looking for a gap in the proceedings only to come away empty handed. Mom is not ready to receive me yet. Good news for me I guess. I was exhausted from the activities of the previous two days. The cram in my stomach was still there. It was more awkward than painful. I slept in the afternoon on her couch. Three hours. Longer than I expected.

Sunday evening saw us having Shwarma for dinner. I could not eat much. The meal of Friday night was still with me. In fact, it stuck around for about a week. We decided to visit Mahin again for a cup of tea. She was in constant communication with Fetneh wondering when we would drop in again. Gigi and Ivan were there. We had cups of tea. They kept filling them up. I had little choice but to keep drinking. We had a great time with the Vidals. I got to bed around ten. Two more Tylenol 1s to make sure I slept through the night.

We had breakfast with Mitra and somehow ended up spending the whole day with her. I had to leave to catch my 4:20 flight home (delayed to 4:45). Mitra and I are old friends. We spent much of my time in Montreal together. You forget these things until you spend a bit of time together again. It was very easy and relaxed. I was home.

Security out of Dorval was another beast of an affair. They accepted the letter and allowed to keep my scissors. The air freshener gave them hiccups until a supervisor placed it in one of their plastic bags. It fit in there perfectly making it a legitimate item to carry on. The security person then decided she had to check the rest of my bag. She went through everything, a bit like going through customs. I am not sure what prompted that exercise. She finally found an object to confiscate, my half used tube of toothpaste. Victory! I was free to go.

I rested the rest of the week recovering from the excesses of Montreal.

Cancer creates such wonderful opportunities. Bi-weekly visits to the Chemo Daycare, the side effects of all the treatments, the incredible amount of information you have to sift through to get the an inkling of what to expect.

The other side is the amazing support of friends and relatives. The good side.

We spent last weekend visiting friends and taking full advantage of their hospitality. Saturday was spent on the shores of Lake Simcoe. Janet’s cousin Deena, rents a cottage on Lake Simcoe every year. We spend a day visiting. Her brother Bryan and family come up as well, as does Eva. All good making for a small family get together. I had a good chat with David Margolese whose company I always enjoy.

We spent Sunday and Monday at the Fraser farm taking full advantage of the company and space. The Frasers were all there, including the delectable and always charming Ceilidh.

Heather Fraser is doing some very interesting work in all kinds of places. We talked (again) about the work of one of her friends. A Dr. Robert Buckman. He, the Doctor, theorizes that we are better off treating cancer by slow doses of Chemo instead of the current methods of bombarding the body with a huge dose of the drugs. The theory is that the cancer cells start dying when bombarded, but soon retreat, in effect removing the threat. The magic happens once we stop treating the body to the cancer drugs. At this point the cancer cells return in full force attacking the body with renewed viguour.

The slow treatment allows the body to be treated with low doses of the Chemo drugs, in effect fooling the cancer cells into thinking nothing is happening, that they are not under attack. This treatment lulls the cancer cells allowing for a more prolonged attack. The current trials have been done on breast cancer patients. The treatments are called DalCM-P. Goolge it, or read this article. I have an appointment with Dr. Buckman this coming Thursday.

I have started my Chemo vacation in a very slow mode. I have been away from my computer for a few days, which is very unusual for me. I have a lot of projects on the go, but find myself in some sort of a limbo state. Still trying to come to terms with all the unsaid words about why we are on vacation. I am eternally positive in my outlook, yet cannot help but wonder about the future.

People insist on telling me that they could die early when they get hit by a bus. I finally found a link that talks about the possibilities of ending your life with said method. As my friend Stone remarked, it is not a competition. If people insist on getting hit by a bus, they are more than welcome to go before me.

I am also receiving information about alternative treatments. More specifically, two people have written me with information on Y-90, an isotope based treatment directed at liver cancer. It is also used for treating metastasized cancer that are now affecting the liver. Items for discussion with Dr. Buckman.

I have not been interested with the type of cancer that is afflicting me until now. The rare occasion when the question has come up has resulted in me answering with something to the effect that I have the type of cancer that eventually kills you. A lot of the remedies I am reading on the web refer to very specific types of cancer that are affected by the treatments. It might be beneficial for me to know what type of cancer I do have to make sense of the articles I am reading.

The amount of information is mind blowing and very confusing. Following the idea that each body is different and reacts differently to everything adds to the confusion. There are cases of people who have been removed from treatments that have survived. People given 6 months who have lived for a lot longer. The comments of people who have tried certain remedies and are waxing poetic about it can also be misleading. Are they genuine? What was their affliction? None of it is corroborated with statements from reputable hospitals or clinics or doctors. We will believe anything that we think will cure us, however absurd it may sound.

How to differentiate between the absurd and the items that make more sense. Does the guy who claims that eating hot peppers on bread with garlic for two weeks make sense? A pepper based diet will rid you of cancer in two weeks he says. That diet will also be rid of me in less time. He just might be right though. Do I throw caution to the wind and attempt his remedy? The temptation is there, going against all common sense.

The next few weeks will see me working on a few projects. I will attempt to make my camera bag. Finish at least one of the two web sites I am working on. Maybe render my new kitchen to paper, as well as the new design for the back yard. All these things take time and concentration. I ams till sleeping in the afternoons. For longer periods than before the vacation. These get in the way of the projects. Do as the body tells.

Time to see the psychologist.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for your thoughts, support, and prayers.

We took a week off Chemo treatments to visit friends and relatives in Montreal

Another Chemo session under the belt, as it were. The routine of these session is a bit disquieting and yet welcome at the same time.

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