February 2018: Thank you for all the fundraising efforts
February 20, 2018Happy July heat wave, everyone- yikes!
July 15, 2018
Happy Pride month everyone- friends and allies!
June has been an eventful month. Beside 3 medical appointments on my California medical trip, I had fun resuming some social media fundraising efforts with my brother and sister in law.
1st. On June 1 I was at the Cancer Center For Healing in Irvine California. I received a cancer treatment known as the SOT. SOT stands for Supportive Oligonucleotide Technique. It’s a type of blood treatment that uses the messenger RNA from your own blood that, once its been re-injected, works anywhere from 3 to 6 months at finding and killing only the cancer stem cells and circulating tumor cells which may still be floating around throughout my body. This test has been used in Europe for almost 20 years now and yet is relatively unknown in the United States. The total cost was $3220, not covered by insurance.
2nd. The second procedure was a blood draw for a blood test called the Oncocount. This test tells the patient what number of cancer stem cells still remain in the blood stream of the body. The total cost was $624, not covered by insurance.
3rd. The third medical item on my trip was a consultation about the potential of using THC and CBD tinctures for my particular type of breast cancer, triple negative breast cancer. Because I was approved for, and will soon be getting, an Illinois compassionate use cannabis card, (it will probably arrive in September or October 2018) I wanted to know what the evidence and patients’ first-hand experiences revealed about using these two chemicals to not only relieve symptoms and side effects, but to treat the triple negative breast cancer itself. The oncology nurse, who is an expert, says that she has treated about 160 cancer patients so far, many of whom have had triple negative breast cancer. So far, all of her patients have had decreases in the numbers of cancer cells. And this seems to include cancer stem cells that are still hiding out in the bone marrow of patients, not just in the bloodstream. This is amazing news! However she advised me not to start CBD/THC until the SOT has already done it’s job – these 2 treatments can interfere with one another.
4th. Fun with Video! My fantastic brother Gary, my wonderful sister-in-law Bambi and I made some fundraising videos. Because I don’t really like doing social media that much, and I have a wicked case of stage fright, I asked Gary and Bambi to participate with me in making some humorous videos for my next phase of fundraising. Gary changed the lyrics to a couple of old pop songs, mostly from the 1990s I think, and then Bambi filmed us and directed us so as to be as fun/ goofy as possible, singing these snippets of songs. I must say I had a great laugh that day.
I have not gotten around to editing them, let alone posting them (as of this writing- Monday, June 18, 2018), but I know that with the help of friends who are better at this kind of thing, we will get them posted, and hopefully everybody will have a giggle, we’ll gets some hits, and raise some more funds.
Other California fun. The three of us also went to an art fair over the weekend and best of all, I got to visit with my then 5 month old great nephew, Valerian, and his proud parents Tristan and Jeanette, my nephew and his wife. By the way, I highly recommend to fellow cancer patients holding a happy baby on your chest if you want to feel stress reduction in your body. Valerian was such a delight, I felt myself getting calmer and calmer just by virtue of holding him and hugging him.
Well, that’s the biggest medical news for this month for now, folks. May you all be enjoying your summer so far!