Blog #14... "My decisions for treatment"

WOW! I've been  overwhelmed with information and suggestions. One doctor say's one thing, and another say's something completely different. It's a journey that has been very hard on me emotionally. I have had my up's and down's. The day where I'm convinced that chemo is the answer to saving my life, to being completely being turned around, by the alternative medicine doctor. I wish this whole process was cut and dry. Where I go in get some treatment, with a 100% guarantee that I will be healed, unfortunately, I don't think anyone can tell me that. 

My options are limited here, I have chemo, and take poison into my body trying to shrink the cancer, while killing the bad cells, it's also killing my good cells, the ones I need to fight off the diseases my body my catch while in treatment. I told my oncologist at MD Anderson that when I got chemo I would stay away from other people, to try and avoid catching anything else others might have. You know what his response was "You don't have to do that, you can go out and do every thing normal" My thought is my immune system is being beat down with the chemo why in the world would it be okay for me to be around people and risk getting sicker? Am I off base on this thought?I don't think so! Besides the fact that there is no specific chemo that will treat my type of liver cancer. There is not much research on drugs for liver cancer, because only 2% of cancer in this country is actual liver cancer. Discouraging?, it is for me! I was going to do chemo, after leaving MD Anderson, I had my mind made up. I was going to go against all that I felt to be right and do the treatments to live a longer life, (I hoped) The doctor didn't say I would live a longer life with the chemo, he THOUGHT I could live a longer life. Thought and know are two different things. All I do is think about the information I have stored in my mind every single day. 

One thing that is helping me to make up my mind in treatment is that every doctor that has seem me, say's "Why are you here?" I laugh because they are in shock that I have stage 4 liver cancer, and look so healthy. I feel so healthy and besides the test results that have been done, I would not believe that I even have cancer. 

So, I  feel good, I want to stay that way, and therefore, I have decided that alternative treatment is my best option, at least at first. I am going to try and beat this disease with getting my body into the best possible health that I can. I am dedicated to eating extremely healthy, every time I think I want a something sweet, I think about the fight and the urge to cheat disappears. This hopefully won't be for the rest of my life, but for now it is what I must do to get myself well. I have had several people say you can eat what you want, I don't think so, I think eating that way got me into the position I am in now.I don't expect everyone to believe me on this or anything else. I just know what I feel is right for me, and in doing so I own this disease.... and it will not own me. 

I wish I didn't have to make any of these decisions. I wish the answers were laid out before me and I knew the way to go with this all.It's not that simple. It's not black and white in the sense that this is the miracle answer. I have to have hope and faith that the decisions I make are the right ones for me. I don't expect my brother or my sister to make these decisions for me, it's not their life ultimately, it's my own. I will not allow them to carry the burden of choosing my recovery, nor should they have too. I will live or I will die, but let me tell you this, I will go knowing in my heart and soul that I am making the choices for myself and what I feel will be best for me and my family. 

This journey is no fun. Sometimes, even with a huge group of people all around, I feel alone. That too is a choice to make that you  yourself control the cancer, and it's progress, than it controlling you....

People tell me all the time how much they admire my strength, Believe me it isn't easy, it's a road of self journey that is sometimes so hard to bare that you don't even know what to do next, I just pick myself up, close down the pity party and move on!  One day at a time. That's how I want to now live my life. I have always looked so far into the future and tried to predict what would be, now I just one to wake up each tomorrow and know that I AM going to  beat cancers ass.  

Don't cry for me.... Pray for me... As always!