■

7/25/06

Today was my chemotherapy day, but my white blood cell count is low again. Since I had to skip the therapy last week due to the same reason, my oncologist decided to give me Cisplatin alone (I have been taking both Cisplatin and CTP 11), with subsequent Newpogen (white blood cell booster) shots for the next 5 days. I have to learn to give the shot myself if possible! This may be one of the biggest challenges, because I have a needle phobia.

“Otherwise, however, you look great, and you are doing great. Your weight is rock-solid, with a half pound gain from the beginning of the therapy,” said the doctor. I actually am feeling very good today.

It seems that the culprit behind the low white blood cell is the radiation therapy. It is every day, and the location is so close to the bone marrow where the white blood cells are being produced. I was given homework by the oncologist to talk to my radiation oncologist tomorrow, to find out if he is changing or shrinking the radiation location soon.

Well, for me to say that I feel good today is almost a miracle.

I was feeling awful for about 24 hours from Sunday evening through Monday evening. I felt bloated and could not eat anything, and was suffering from dry heaves. The only comfortable posture I could take was the fetus position.

“ What happened to me? I have gone without chemotherapy for nearly 2 weeks, and I should feel great. Instead, I cannot even drink water. I need to be able to go through the chemotherapy tomorrow in order to make this treatment effective.”

Unfortunately my acupuncturist is on vacation. So I decided to call the masseuse whom I used to go to whenever I had stress related pains at my back and shoulder in my non-cancer days.

When I learned that I have cancer and started telling people, I was bombarded with all different opinions; from main stream scientific ones to holistic approaches and supplements; statistical numbers and ad-hoc case studies. Every opinion is well intentioned, but it confuses the newly diagnosed patient tremendously. During that time period, I had a dream that I am floating in a rubber boat on the ocean, and the gentle sunlight is radiating my esophagus with warmth, just like Alan Delon in the movie “Purple Moon.”

After awakening, I remembered the warmth that I always felt when my masseuse put her hand wherever my muscle had a knot; I imagine that it was “reiki” warmth. R-my masseuse has a very special healer quality, like my acupuncturist E. Simply talking to her calms you down and fills you with quiet but assertive energy. I made an appointment to get her treatment in June, but could not make it because my first surgery was scheduled very quickly.

Fortunately she had an opening, and we drove to her house yesterday.

She starts with the foot, and then gently loosens the whole calf, thigh, and the joints, one side at one time. Then she puts her warm hand on my lower abdomen, stomach area, then to esophagus, sandwiching with another hand at my back. Her hands emanate a tremendous amount of gentle heat. While her hands were on my upper body, I felt pain arise and move, and then realized that the pain is actually coming from my tumor area, the place that was assaulted not only by the tumor itself but also by all sort of treatments. While her hand was on those locations, I felt curing pain, but also felt light and normal as soon as she was done with that location and swished away her hands as though to throw away the toxin. When I was done, I was no longer feeling bloated.

R charged only for one hour, and I was oblivious to the time. When I came out of her house, Mark was waiting in the car, rather irritated because he had a plan for the evening. “ It took 2 hours!’…. Oh, my…I did not know that she took that much of her time…Thank you, but I do not know how to pay her back.

When I got home, another friend delivered dinner. In addition to a wonderful meat dish and salad, she cooked a hearty chicken vegetable soup! That was the food I needed after 24 hours of not being able to eat anything! Believe it or not, I ate three bowls of that delicious soup.

After starting the treatment, I am witnessing mysteries of life. I admire and respect the advance of Western medicine very much. Without the nighttime feeding with J-tube, I would be skin-and-bones by now. The nausea caused by the chemotherapy is countered by amazing mixtures of medicines. Only the logical and coolheaded analytical approach made this advancement possible.

However, there is a different kind of cure and healing in holistic approaches such as acupuncture and massage. Their results are difficult to quantify, but there is a lot of data and case studies. A lot of times patients need this kind of cure desperately.

Even though I am a totally literature/letter-oriented person, I have studied linguistics, whose approach is theoretical and logical. Since that training, I became extremely suspicious of writings without proper footnotes and statistics.

But I am becoming much more humble and open to the other approach, facing and watching the mysteries of life unfold in front of my eyes.