Getting in The Game

Our family Christmas season lasted nearly two weeks and was everything we wished for, snow on Christmas eve painted everything beautiful and made for great sledding.  The hill is right outside the family room so I could watch the kids with great joy.  It was a sweet and loving time.  I enjoyed the role of royalty – I was coddled and served by our kids the whole time.  Lonni didn’t cook, I didn’t do the dishes.  It was great, but alas all things must end!!

We returned to Chicago (and doing the dishes) and reentered the cancer fight.  On Jan 5 we visited our third and final option – the Block Center.  Lonni and I were totally impressed with this organization.  We knew their approach (called Integrative Care – i.e. wholistic) which blends Western and alternative methods of care (they call their program Life Over Cancer.)   The approach puts the patient at the center of the fight.  How?  Through radical change of what you do and do not eat, plus other healthful things like exercise and stress reduction techniques.  It is a complete reversal of the Standard American Diet (SAD) – meat, dairy and sugars are a thing of the past, replaced by fresh, healthy foods.

Like anything else, this is a totally new world with an incredible learning curve.  I am suspecting there are a fair number of you reading this respond with skepticism.  Fully understandable, I’ve been there and led my life ignoring healthy living.  I will not try to convince anyone.  I will say this, however:  the American Cancer Society and tons of medical research have found that colon cancer victims commonly have diets high in sugar and fat.  And an unusually high number are named Glen!!  (yes, I did make that up.)

So we are fighting this disease through diet and nutrition that will give the chemotherapy the best chance to work.  Today I had my “port” installed.  You may know that a port is a small device placed under the skin in the chest just below the collar bone.  Chemo is delivered through the port.  A week from Wednesday chemo begins.  The regimen is that every two weeks I will receive 48 hours of infusion.  Two hours will be given at the Block Center and 46 hours through a portable pump that allows for activity even during delivery.

We continue to run into people who have high praise for the Block Center and the success of LOC.  But today was, perhaps, the most encouraging and came from folks with no personal investment, yet are close observers. The Block doctor uses the radiology department of a nearby large hospital (not Northwestern) for this procedure.  Nurses in this department regularly see Block patients as well as patients from the oncology department of their own hospital.  Observing how much better the Block patients perform through treatment has made them BIG Block Center fans!  One nurse said, "I wish I could tell our patients, 'Go to the Block Center.  You will do much better that here.'  But, of course, I would not have a job for long if I did that".  Both nurses have radically changed their own personal diet, one totally eliminating sugar.

Who knows how it will play out in my case, I do know, though, that I want to be in the game and I want to have hope.  The Block Center puts me at center court.