Good Evening Everyone!
We are pleased to report that Week 1 of treatment is DONE! YAHOO! 5 more weeks to go! One big take away from last week... Jason is not invincable. Smile. Laugh as you may, but I'll be honest to say that we were actually surprised that the first week of treatment was as tough on him as it was. So, we were definitely level set on our expectations as to what to expect for the weeks to come!
Here's a recap of his first week. We don't plan on being this detailed in weeks to come, however we thought it would be interesting for you to hear and learn the effects that chemo/radiation can have. It sure was a learning experience for us!
Monday, 10/17: Chemo and radiation day. We left the house at 7am and got home at 8pm. LONG DAY! We were absolutely wiped by the end of the day. And, we learned that it was just too hard after being gone all day to then come home to a clingy daughter who was mean to her daddy : ( Poor Taylor is missing our norm of having Mommy/Taylor time during the day and was upset that she wasn't getting that with daddy home. Thanks to the Couches and Shanks, we have help with Taylor spending the night with them Sunday and Monday evening now to get us through the longest days of our week.
Tuesday, 10/18: Radiation day. While radiation was quick, compared to the long day prior, Jason had a tough day keeping anything in him that day. Without being too graphic, if he spent anymore time on the toilet that day (YUCK), we were going to have to head back to hospital. Praise God we didn't get to that point. Two positives were that he was able to drive himself to Baltimore for treatment as well as get a workout in (which is so incredibly important especially during treatment)
Wednesday, 10/19: Radiation day. This was probably Jas' toughest day out of the entire week. POOR GUY! While he was able to get some medication to help with his Tuesday issues, he was borderline to throwing up the majority of the day and just WIPED out from not being able to keep food in him. He explained it to me by comparing a pregnant woman in their first tri-mester : ) If he got one whiff of the wrong food it would put him over the edge. Or he would take the time to make something to eat that finally sounded good, but by the time it was ready he didn't even want to look at it. However, he did drive himself to treatment again and took a long walk that evening.
Thursday, 10/20: Radiation day. While not much sounded good this day to Jas, he was able to regain some of his energy. And, he was able to drive himself to radiation.
Friday, 10/21: Radiation, Oncologist Appt & Natropath Appt. What a good day! Jas was starting to look and feel more like himself again. That was encouraging! He was able to exercise and I was able to drive with Jas because of the numerous appointments we had lined up for the day. Radiation was quick. Then we met with our Oncologist to make tweaks to Jason's med line up that will hopefully help with all of the above issues for a smoother Week 2.
We finished our day with our Natropath Appt with Dr. Hinderberger. This was a very interesting appointment as typically Natropaths and Oncologists butt heads when it comes to treatment plans, since one typically prefers working with natural remedies and the other with drugs/chemicals. After learning more of Jas' situation, the Natropath came right out and told us that he agreed with our treatment plan of chemo and radiation, however he wanted to work with us on additional supplements to enhance his treatment plan along with education on general nutrition. PRAISE GOD! First of all, let me just tell you how relieved we were to hear those words as we were of course forseeing the opposite lol. That gave us such a peace of mind knowing that both of our Dr. were in alignment in regards to chemo and radiation!
As for nutrition... based on research we have done on our own as well as Dr. Hinderberger's recommendation, we are changing our diet to what is called The Alkaline Way. The basis behind this is that your body needs to be at a PH level between 6.5 to 7.5 in order to be in a "healthy repair/restore state." Typically when illness/disease sets in, your body is at a PH level outside of this range and you need to get it back into the range in order to begin repairing/restoring. Ultimately, we must focus on eliminating sugar, processed foods, white flour and most meats from our diet - ensuring that Jas is eating foods with high alkalinity and staying away from foods that tend to have higher acidity. Another really cool thing about our meeting, is the Dr. Hinderberger reminded Jas that he should be thanking God that he has a heart for hunting and fishing, as out of all of the meats that are the safest from an acidity perspective, wild game and fish are the best (in moderation). We really appreciated that he recognized and gave credit to God for that!
Here is the link for more info on the Alkaline Way: http://www.elisaact.com/pdfs/EAB_AlkalineWay.pdf
A couple other things that we took away from this appointment. Jas will be giving himself a Mistletoe shot in the belly 3 days a week. Mistletoe stimulates the immune system, helping the body fight more efficiently against cancer and other diseases. This is something that is very common over in Europe for the past 75 years, but still hasn't made a big entrance to the states yet due to the FDA. Dr. Hinderberger is from Sweden, but has been practicing in the US for over 25 years. He shared that the Europeans are much further along in their alternative medicine practices for treating cancer and have been proven to have very good results! Along with the mistletoe, we walked away with a bag full of other natural supplements to help aide in the effects of radiation & chemo, along with pump the body up with some extra things that will be depleted. Our next appt with Dr. Hinderberger will be after treatment ends to go through a detox process.
Saturday, 10/22 & Sunday, 10/23: Jason's BEST DAYS! He was feeling great, his energy was back and was able to exercise. We had 2 fantastic family days together - Hooray!!!
Thanks for your continued prayers! More updates to come shortly : ) Our goal is to have shorter, yet more frequent posts soon! Thanks for your patience.
Trust in Him & With Much Love,
Meg
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