Alive and Doing Well!

View out my kitchen window where I've spent many an hour looking out these past months!

Okay, I've been absent for several months! I know!!

But I do feel like I owe it to you to let you know how I am doing.  You have been my cheerleaders, my heart.  You've inspired me, lifted me up, and kept me laughing and smiling.  

In May we found out definitively that my transplant last spring wasn't the miracle we were hoping for.   I had spent several months prior to this news during our "watch and wait" period implementing modified Gerson Therapy, medical Qigong, meditation and other anti-cancer therapies into my life.  While I do think these have helped the cancer not metastasize, it has grown and seems to be a stubborn soldier.  

I have decided to try a newly approved monoclonal antibody drug called brentuximab.  It is very promising and hopefully comes with fewer side effects!  So far I have had two rounds of it, and am doing very well.  After one more round I will have another PET scan (beginning of August) and *fingers crossed* the drug will have worked its magic.   In all, we expect to do 8 or 9 rounds.  Unfortunately, doctors don't feel this is "the cure", although they also tell me that they don't expect I will be cured if I relapse after transplant.  But, disease management, or palliative care...a term I had never heard of until this ordeal, is possible for me to live out several more years!   (I am still holding out for a miracle :-))

Despite what  the "statistics" can do to the psyche, I am doing remarkably well.  My life seems different now.  Well, it IS different now.  I wonder if I am not writing here because I don't even know how to say in words the changes that are happening.  Life is simpler.  MUCH simpler.  It is good.  And easy.  I am blessed with a loving family and husband, amazing friends, a relationship with the divine I never have had before, and a true awe and appreciation for the beauty that each day brings me. 

Sending love to you all!!

One of the many days we've spent working the land.  I am the happiest here.  

Here's a half a weeks worth of veggies I've been juicing now for 5 months!  I have a healthy orange glow :)