1000 Hours Long

Sun. Oct 24 /10 The Song of The Day Is: "Higher Ground" by Stevie Wonder. Each day now feels like it is 1000 hours long. Most time's when I try do something. Anything! Prepare some food. Get washed . Pull the door open that is stuck a little so that I can let some fresh air in. Type a few words . Anything I try to do , I run up a against a wall , get dizzy ,and am unable to concentrate. I end up either carefully positioning my self on the hospital bed that the Red Cross so graciously provided , or pacing in circles in my small apt. These are the only two positions left that help me avoid choking to death. Had it not been for the hospital bed I would have expired days ago. Because of the position of the tumours I have been unable to lay down for over 40 days now.I can neither lay down on either side or on my back. 15 days prior to the 40 were spent (24/7 ) , pacing , standing in front of my kitchen sink , two hands up on the sink , supporting my self as I leaned forward , or propping myself up on some pillows in a semi sitting position and passing out. (this position I could only hold for 15 minutes to a maximum of 1hr and 15 minutes). For those 15 days however I was in excruciating pain.The hospital bed enabled me to rest in a sitting position.After those 15 days is when I finally succumbed to accepting and taking the debilitating medications that are provided by our medical system. I have to sacrifice lucidity , my ability to function anywhere near normal, my bowel and my digestive system in order to achieve some pain control. The drugs are extremely addictive and will assault the body with severe withdrawal effects if I wish to stop using them. Hmm ? These drugs came around at the turn of the last century (1800’s to 1900’s) , did the medical profession even know about hand washing then ? Even with the narcotics that are now providing some respite from my pain ,I would not be able to get ant rest without the hospital bed that enables me to put myself in the position of some comfort without having to support myself. Walking also provide some comfort.I have managed to drink a 1/2 of a cup of coffee. This coffee has probably given me the zip to write this . My right lung an right side feels like a large stone stuck in my chest .If I stretch or move the wrong way I start to choke. For the last 12 hours I have been tasting blood. I have gotten somewhat used to the constant state of panic that I am in. I attribute the sense of panic to the tumour that is blocking off my airway and is constantly compressing( or whatever it is doing in there) my airway . I’ll include here what one night is like for me lately. .! ( Oct. 22 /10 0230 Right at this moment I feel as if I am balancing on a wire. Tipping towards deaths door more so than tipping the other way. Breathing is difficult , as is concentrating on anything else but balancing on that wire.I keep trying to find positions to avoid choking. Dizziness is a constant companion. I wait for the bouts of pains to just start rearing their ugly heads in parts of my body so that I can medicate before they become debilitating. I am still trying to limit the amount of narcotics that I have to take ,hoping to stay as lucid as possible. I have to catch the pain before it become debilitating. If I wait till the pain becomes too severe , the medications will not be effective. Suddenly I can’t breath. I start getting dizzy and try to stave off the panic. I get up out of bed , stretch and contort my chest, I put two hands up onto the kitchen sink , trying to find a position that allows me to breath. Light headed , dizzy and unstable on my feet. I have a strong urge to panic until I can over come the chocking effect of the cancerous tumours.I think to myself , is it going to stop in time this time? The only thing that I can concentrate on is finding a position or moving in away that lets me breath . Laying down at this moment would be impossible. I would choke to death. ,Oct 24 /10 0432 . Another bout of choking . I paced and now am sitting hunched over , stretching out my right side so that I can continue pecking away at the keyboard. If there was a place to walk, or should I say waddle ( keeping moving while maintaining my upper body in a certain position) I would do so, as walking even though not comfortable is comforting. There is no place to walk now other than pacing because the winds that come every fall and winter have arrived. A healthy person would have trouble walking outside. (need a treadmill) . I went thought five more sessions of radiation therapy in Vancouver, I would have liked to have documented that experience , but putting pen to paper does not work for me anymore and there was no other means of keeping a physical record of what was happening. The oncologist say that the therapy will take a few weeks (if I hang on for that long) to have positive effect if it has any effects at all. The home-care nurses told me that the tumours will swell before they get better. This may explain why I am having so much difficulty from one minute to the next.There was little room for the tumours to swell prior to the therapy. The last day of the radiation therapy was on Tues .Oct 19/10 . I am only into the fifth day after the therapy. Right now it does not feel like I am going to be able to hang on . I keep my fingers crossed that the therapy will take effect. Two things have been instrumental in keeping me alive. One is the hospital bed . Without it ,being able to put myself in a position that I can rest for brief periods would be impossible. About 30 days ago ,I had to alternately stand or pace for 15 or so days and nights.Without the bed I would have succumbed to the exhaustion long ago. I still cannot lay down on either side , or on my back for more than 15 min, to 1 1/2 hours. The other thing that has kept me alive was discovering “enerex” GREENS raw supplement.Because of the choking I was unable to eat for days and was starving (I am not out of the woods on this one yet) . The supplement enabled me to get some nutrition. The “Ensure” and “Boost” just made me ill and caused the choking to become worse.These two things may sound simple. What scares me is that without them, I am sure that the exhaustion and malnutrition would have killed me sometime during the last month or so. Whenever I get the energy to move and concentrate for a bit ,I look into alternate cancer therapies. The conventional practice of poisoning the body with radiation and chemicals , although initially helpful in reducing the tumours should only be considered part of initial cancer therapy.One has to question if there should not be a more complete therapy . Many other cancer patients that I have spoken with and myself have had to stop and think. What is worse ? Dying or the therapy? With my cancer and the chemo that I experienced this was a question that I asked myself on more than one occasion. Doing things for the body that heal it afterwards are just as important as the chemo and radiation therapies. Diet ,supplements and movement are as important. As it stands poisoning the body and then abandoning the patient without any more support other than providing more drugs I am sure is responsible for many horrific deaths. Our medical system will spend 10s of thousands of dollars trying to help some one battling cancer as long as the therapy means that the money is spent on purchasing drugs. As it stands now I am living by the hour. I only seem to be able to concentrate on “hanging on” and as to how to take care of myself when there is little energy to do so. Either I am going to die at any moment , or I will be able to hang on for awhile longer , hoping that the radiation therapy has enough beneficial effects to keep me alive for awhile longer. Maybe tomorrow. Either way this is a horrible way to die. I'm still here though. Oct 24/10 0850