Hi All,

I don’t get sick much, but every 20 years or so, (I am currently 62) something takes me down for awhile. This time it’s a doosey!

I can say it now…Lung cancer, Stage 3. Non small cell Squamous.

I am co-opting this website to post updates about my health, as I need to conserve time and energy to devote to the myraid decisions I need to make. Plus, I need to preserve my voice, obtain time and silence in which to practice the many healing tools that I have accumulated over 30 years for the healing of others, which now I need to use for my personal benefit.  I hope that this website/blog will free me from the many questions, phone calls, emails and Facebook comments that take my time and energy, which at the moment is precious and variable.

I have left room for comments and offers of assistance below my posts. I am well versed in alternative health practices, so if you cannot support whatever decision I make for my care, I hope you know how to ease your fear or condemnation, as I do not accept that.  I do want to remind you to be understanding, as I cannot possibly respond individually to your comments or take all your suggestions.  I greatly appreciate your positive intentions, however, if I need something, I intend to be very specific about what I need.  I welcome offers of help about those specific requests.

In short,  I need to follow my own path of healing and inner guidance that is congruent with who I am and who I am becoming in this process of what seems to me is a Shamanic initiation ritual.

Many of you here are energy workers of some kind.  Do NOT hesitate to send me positive energy, thoughts, love, light, reiki, prayer, surrogate EFT, PSYCH-K or any distant healing you are trained to administer.  I am open to receive and grateful beyond words can express for your generousity. You hearby have my permission, in case your training requires that you ask.

Here’s the first question everyone asks:

What Happened?

Since April 2015, developed a chronic cough, which I assumed was just a cold I caught on the plane home from Esalen Institute. But it persisted through the summer. I finally saw a nurse practitioner in October who said it was allergies. I used all the over the counter allergy medications for about a month, but nothing helped. I even spend a couple thousand dollars on making my home and office allergen-free, including ripping up moldy carpet in the basement and replacing it with vinyl flooring (which I meant to do anyway). This just lit a fire under me.

I ended up at urgent care the beginning of January, where I was treated for pneumonia, despite not having a fever. Three weeks later I was in my regular doctor’s office with the same pneumonia. She gave me yet another round of a more powerful antibiotic, plus a prednisone pack which wrecks havoc on my body. She said if that didn’t work, she was going to put me in the hospital. Three weeks later, I was still sick and weak as a lamb. I attributed it to what prednisone does to my body.

I was scared. There were a few days when I thought, “am I going to die tonight?” I wondered if my will was up-to-date. I wondered if anyone would miss me. I wondered if there were things I still needed to do or would regret if I didn’t do before I died. You know, morbid thoughts like that.

I’d been off work for 2 weeks at the end of January and beginning of February. Being self-employed, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid. I went back to work for a week, but barely made it through.

I finally consulted an alternative care practitioner to discover that the reason none of the above has worked is because I may have had viral pneumonia…probably have had it since last April. We start some treatments to rid my body of the virus and to rebuild my strength, since Western medicine has no cure for viral conditions.

After talking to a few people, I remembered that there’s a acupuncturist and Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner in Carbondale whom I trust and have seen before. I’d been waiting 6 weeks to get into someone here in Saint Louis and couldn’t wait anymore. She got me in within 2 days! Chinese medicine does have treatments for viruses! Yay!

She told me that because of the length of time that I’ve suffered without proper care, that the condition has gone to the deepest part of my core energy system. When I told her that my vision was even affected, she explained that in Chinese medicine, it is also governed by the Liver system, which is what is affected with the pneumonia. On Monday all the road signs that I could see clearly 50+ feet away, were suddenly blurry. Wednesday after 1.5 days after the acupuncture and herbal treatments, things were back to normal. Whew!

I was ready for the long road back to full and vibrant health, when I woke up February 15, 2015 so weak I could barely speak above a whisper.  I was wobbly when I walked. I felt pressure on my chest. Now I have a Brown Belt in Shotokan Karate and had been doing 45 minutes of cardio 1-2 times a week and light weight training daily for the past 6 months, so this really scared me.  I called a friend and he took me to the ER.

Within a matter of a few hours and a CT scan, I was told that I probably have lung cancer. My life, as I knew it, was going to change and not by my choice.

A biopsy indicated a diagnosis of State 3B Lung Cancer. It is the non-small cell type.  I will be having a PET scan and an MRI Feb 24 to determine both the subtype of the cancer and whether there is any other cancer in my body.

When I muscle test, my body does NOT agree that I have cancer. It thinks I have a fungus.  Before being released from the hospital on Thursday, I asked both the hospitalist and the oncologist to characterize the state of my health aside from the cancer. Both said that I am in excellent health! Since I have never smoked and don’t drink, do drugs, have an alkaline diet, exercise regularly and am only 15 pounds above a normal weight, my best guess is this diagnosis is a messenger and a teacher.  More on that in my blog posts.

What Do I Need?

I have been overwhelmed and infinitely grateful for the outpouring of love and support from people all over the world.  We are indeed all connected!  More please!

I am getting the practical details of help with mundane details of life set up.

What is emerging now is the need for some financial assistance.  Since I am self-employed, now that I cannot go to work, I do not have any income. I may be about to embark on an intensive course of treatment that may or may not be debilitating to my system.  I have some savings and I’ve deferred some major expenses, but since I do not know how long my course of treatment will take, that may run out.

I am stressing about how to pay my health insurance premiums ($567/month), it’s deductible ($3500) and the complimentary care that is NOT covered by health insurance.  To that end, I have set up a GoFundMe campaign to accept contributions.  I hate to ask, but I need to take as much stress off myself right now, so that I can focus on healing.