Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
A podcast about practices to promote healthy lives featuring experts, businesses, and clients: we gather to share our stories about success, failure, exploration, and so much more. Our subscription episodes feature some personal and vulnerable, real-life stories that are sensitive to some of the general public.
Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Port, Pump, and Perseverance: Tales from the Infusion Chair
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Cancer has a way of bringing you to your knees while simultaneously showing you your own strength. This raw and revealing episode takes you through my first week of chemotherapy - from the pre-dawn drive to the treatment center to the strange sensation of tasting chemicals in my mouth.
The five-hour infusion process begins with anti-nausea medications and hydration before the three-drug cocktail of docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil enters my system. I'm now connected to a portable pump that continuously delivers medication through my port for five days. It's an adjustment remembering it's attached to me - especially when dogs jump up or grandchildren unknowingly tug at the tubing.
Surprisingly, my side effects have been milder than expected. I attribute this to my fasting protocol and specialized low-methionine diet, which research suggests may protect healthy cells while making cancer cells more vulnerable to treatment. I'm also employing visualization techniques, imagining yellow and white light concentrating around my neck, directing the chemotherapy right where it needs to go.
What's been most unexpected is the improvement in my sleep quality and the sense that the tumor might already be responding, with subtle changes around my jawline. Though the surgical wound continues to weep and there have been uncomfortable moments (including a memorable bout with constipation), I remain deeply grateful to still be able to eat normally when many with similar tumors require feeding tubes.
This journey has given me a new purpose - I've already spoken with two other cancer patients, sharing experiences and hopefully providing some guidance. Your support through subscriptions and messages helps fuel both this podcast and my determination to overcome this challenge while documenting every step for others who might benefit from hearing an unfiltered account of the fight. What questions do you have about integrating conventional and complementary approaches to cancer treatment? Share your thoughts or reach out if you're facing similar challenges - connection is powerful medicine.
Intro for podcast
Here is the link for Sunday's 4 pm Pacific time Zoom meeting
Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and this is another subscription episode. I want to thank everybody who has subscribed and I certainly hope that you find this content especially useful. That could be entertaining, inspiring, informational, whatever the reason that you are listening to this Today. I want to thank Lydia, who's recently subscribed and just know that your contribution helps. It makes a difference in both getting this podcast to be widely received and helping me in my journey to solve my cancer problem and hopefully help others to do the same.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk today about chemotherapy and really just walking through my day-to-day experience with all this and where we left off last time, I got the port installed and Monday we began a chemotherapy session, so we drove down left at 5 o'clock in the morning to get there by 7 something and made it pretty much in time. And made it pretty much in time and the first step was we had a consultation with the nurse practitioner and she walked me through all the different medications that they have me scheduled to be on and walked me through the three chemo drugs and what they're likely to do and the side effects and how we can mitigate them, and I shared with her my experience with fasting and the low methionine diet and the people I'm working with, and she seems to be receptive. I think she understands that I'm the one who presented this option to the medical oncologist, since we were having troubles getting the radiation and chemotherapy that they recommended to get approved Plus, frankly, I wanted to give this less invasive and less harsh treatment a chance, and I believe that we can get this thing to turn around with this and all the other things that I'm doing. So first thing, of course I'm nervous about this wound still weeping, and she caught on pretty quickly and said, look, it's kind of normal and you know, the chemo's been ordered, so we're moving forward. I was like whew, that was really. My biggest concern was that they were going to call it on account of weeping and I said, all right, well, that felt better with that. So then we go over into this room and the nurse walks me through and of course everybody has got to verify who I am and that I know what's happening. And you know, you say your, your name and your date of birth over and over and over again, and so we sit down and you know they finally the doctor had to order.
Speaker 1:They calculated my weight wrong because I've lost a bunch of weight since I first came in there. So they had the chemo based on what my weight was when I first came in, and I've dropped another 10 pounds or so since then, maybe 20. And so they had to recalculate the strength of the chemo. And it's funny because I walked in there I was wearing this pretty heavy jacket and I had I don't know whatever in the pockets, and when I weighed in the second time, apparently I was four pounds lighter. And she's like what the heck? And I says well, let me do this without my jacket on. And sure enough, it matched the last time that I did it without the jacket.
Speaker 1:So they had to recalibrate and remix or I don't know if they mixed it at first, but they had to at least they're double checking everything because it would have been too strong of a cocktail for me and might have had worse side effects. And so we were waiting around a little bit and they got fruit and snacks and stuff, but I was fasting, so my wife got to at least have a little something to snack on and I'm drinking my chlorine dioxide disguised as water and drinking water. And so she ends up getting the thing and showed her where the port was and she kind of feels around and next thing, you know, a little pinch and boom, the needle's inserted in the port. I was like, wow, we're actually here, we're doing it, and so of course I'm praying that this is going to work the best way possible and give me the least amount of harm. But this is going to work the best way possible and give me the least amount of harm.
Speaker 1:And I guess the first step was they drip into you some medicine that's supposed to help keep the nausea and keep the pain to a minimum. I don't know what it is in it and they didn't tell me and I really wasn't going to ask. Then the second thing they do is they hit you with a hydration because one of the drugs can go after your kidneys pretty bad. So you got to keep yourself hydrated and I'm drinking constantly and but this gets it right into your veins. And then finally they started administering the chemo. There's one, the first drug, um docetaxel, then the second drug, cisplatinum, and I sat there for I don't know a good close to five hours I think, with all the drips. Finally everything goes and of course I'm drinking all this water. So I'm having to get up and go pee, dragging my chemo rack along with me the whole time, which is kind of a pain in the neck. But we're doing whatever it takes to make this happen right now that's the motto.
Speaker 1:And finally get done with all that and then I get the pump to carry around with me for the next five days, and that's where the 5-fluorosil gets slowly dripped into my veins. So the pump is fairly compact and it comes with a little readout screen. You can see how much time you have left and whatever. It's a little peristaltic pump, so it's real simple and um, and just every once in a while clicks on, a little thing spins around and a little more goes in and I get home and I can feel the stuff in my head a little bit and I can taste something weird in my mouth and smells a little weird, but so far it's been relatively mild.
Speaker 1:The first night, you know, of course, remembering that I'm attached to this pump is the roughest thing, because I set the pump down when I'm sitting there laying down and then I get up and I forget and I go to get up and walk and of course, I feel like whoops. Luckily they double taped the thing pretty good, because the dogs jumped up on me and my grandkid came over and he didn't see it and was pulling on it. Luckily they held everything intact. Last thing I want to do is get this thing yanked out of my port. So I'm trying to be as careful as I can. I was concerned that the nausea and the vomiting and all this stuff that they talk about was going to happen, and you know, I know there's there's an accumulative effect, and so the first days are generally going to be the easiest days. But I truly believe that the fasting and the diet that I'm on is is going to minimize the side effects and maximize the value and what I'm telling everybody, and especially you who are subscribed I believe you're some of the people that are actually supporting what I'm doing and whatnot. The visualization I'm working on right now is just yellow and white light surrounding my neck inside and out and concentrating the value of the chemotherapy right there where it needs to be, and then watching that energy go up and out of me, breathing. So that's kind of the visual that I'm working with right now.
Speaker 1:Slept better on Monday night than I slept in a while, and last night I slept better than I had in even more time, or Tuesday and Wednesday, whatever but last night, actually, I slept until 6.30 in the morning. I didn't sleep all the way through. But my amount of sleep is increasing and the amount of times I wake up has been decreasing and the space of time between times that I wake up and go to sleep is decreasing. So I'm getting more sleep each night and I feel it. I'm getting a little more energy. Even though the chemo is draining me, I'm matching it with my recharge and maybe even gaining on it a little bit.
Speaker 1:My head's been a little swimmy, even gaining on it a little bit. My head's been a little swimmy. I get tired pretty quickly, but and I feel my throat has been a little sore, but that's also from the cancer and it's also from, you know, eating. And that's really a blessing, though, because one of the things that that's really a blessing though, because one of the things that I'm being asked is are you able to eat? Because this tumor is so big, many people might not be able to eat at this point and might be dealing with a feeding tube or liquid diet, whatnot. So I'm super grateful that I'm able to eat and I'm careful. I chew a lot and I can feel it scratching the inside of my throat to a point Started taking the probiotics. So I'm going to, you know, attempt to recolonize my gut before it gets completely wiped out.
Speaker 1:I'm doing everything I can to keep my immune system together and I'm looking forward to being able to lift some more things pretty soon. I'm walking around more and more. I'm going to probably try to take a hike tomorrow morning and walk all this medicine up to my mountain where I pray and hopefully, you know, bless this medicine that it can help me in the best way and hurt me in the least way. And that's pretty much where I'm at right now. I'm super blessed. I haven't thrown up. The nausea has been present, but minimal. Any other discomfort and pain has been minimal.
Speaker 1:I feel like the tumor has started to recede a little bit. Where it wraps around my jaw. I feel like it's gone back a little bit. The top end of it, I think, is changing. It's still weeping pretty bad, but I think that might be a good thing. It's draining, you know, fluid from it and anything that's leaving my body right now is good as far as I'm concerned, you know, oh, I did have a pretty horrible round of constipation yesterday and I have never really dealt with that. I've always been really regular and that's one of the markers that I use to gauge my health, and I'm pretty certain it was just this rash of chemicals that went into me that messed me up.
Speaker 1:Today things were pretty much back to normal a little tight, but not not terrible and I know I'm sharing some weird shit with you, but that's what the subscriber thing's about. You get to hear my weird shit. My head has been clear enough. I've done two interviews today already and I'm still here talking. I've got one more to do tonight with Dr Hoffman and I feel strong enough that we're making it happen. I'm trying to stay awake all day or take the least amount of rest and naps so that I can sleep good at night.
Speaker 1:And just super, super grateful for all the love and support I've been receiving and just want to say thank you and just super, super grateful for all the love and support I've been receiving and just want to say thank you. I think that this podcast is making a difference. I've talked to two cancer patients yesterday, got to share some of my experiences with them and hopefully guide them in a positive way to find their answers and at least give them some inspiration. And I think more and more that's what's happening here. We're tapping into a new resource of you know. I've got this new empathy, this new experience, and it's good for everybody. It's good for anybody who needs to learn anything. So I just want to say thank you to everybody who's listening and I hope you know that you're part of the value of what we're doing here. All right, we'll talk next time, thanks.
