Life, Death and the Power of the Bees - July Health Update
What do bees have to do with my story? Well, given that I’m the daughter of a biologist, I have a particular fascination with these magical little insects. Stick with my story and you’ll hear it at the end! I have not written a health update since April mainly because there was nothing to report health wise and my attention was occupied with the decline of a dear friend and family member. Since I received my great test results back in April I made a conscious decision to not feed fear into my health journey. I decided to think of the cancer diagnosis like a cold or something temporary I was healing. Cancer wasn’t something that was going to kill me but was only momentarily present to teach me profound life lessons. And so it is!
The last few months have been full. On June 11, I was excited to be literally ‘back in the saddle again’ and rode Comanche for the second time after the September 2016 Stage 3 Breast Cancer Diagnosis. Unfortunately Xaria was with us in the riding arena. When Comanche started trotting, Xaria displayed her talented herding dog skills, ended up spooking Comanche and off I fell! The result: a broken wrist and two months in a cast and/or brace. Life never fails to provide more learning opportunities it seems! The main lesson of the broken arm: patience, fine tuning the art of learning to ask for help, slowing down and increased self care. After the first frustrated week of limited mobility, the gifts of the broken arm began to be revealed and now I’m fairly at peace with my high-tech robot arm brace!
I received the most fabulous test results a few weeks ago with the third RGCC Greece test! (The RGCC test measures the tumor cell count in the bloodstream. For more info about this blood test please see below.) In fact I was told by Doctor V’s coach whom is assisting me (Doctor V) that I am breaking records with how astoundingly fast I am healing with my natural healing regiment (NO chemotherapy, surgery, radiation or hormones). In November my score was 8.2 (which was frighteningly high), April scored at 6.5 and July at 3! This is a dramatically rapid drop as the usual decline is one point every three months. The last test results showed a 3.5 drop in three months!!! Remission is less than 1 point, which means if I keep healing at this rate, I will be in remission in three months!! The expected healing rate for my particular diagnosis and protocol would take two years and at the rate I’m going I’ll be cancer free within nine months total!
Many have asked about the tumor in my breast. Those of you who know me well won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve chosen the extreme alternative approach to healing. The standard method of treating a breast cancer tumor is surgery, either a lumpectomy (removing the tumor) or mastectomy (entirely removing the breast). In the ten-months I have seen a handful of breast cancer journeyers undergo either a lumpectomy or mastectomy and think they are ‘cured’ of cancer only to unfortunately have it return months later. The most alternative route of removing a tumor is to use black salve (a mixture of four different herbs), which penetrates into the skin, killing unhealthy cells and leaving healthy ones intact. This can be a very painful treatment.
I LOVE my breasts! My breasts nursed my son for twenty-two months and my goal is to keep them as intact as possible. I KNOW that with my diligent health routine I can shrink this tumor and turn it into scar tissue! (This has happened with others and it WILL happen with me too. Do you catch the conviction in my intention?) In fact as my tumor cell count decreases as indicated by the RGCC test it means the tumor is losing its power. It is only a matter of time till it turns back into regular tissue.
The last few weeks have been a roller coaster with the vivid high of the test results and the heavy reality of a dear friend and family members death. Rowen Holland was like a sister to me. She was the mother of my beloved 20-year-old niece and has been an integral part of my life for the last two decades. Rowen had relocated to Grass Valley two weeks before my diagnosis in September 2016 and our paths were closely woven in our mutual cancer journeys. Watching her slow decline throughout the winter months was distressing and I felt powerless to help her. Her super hero friends moved her to Santa Cruz in the spring so she could have 24/7 care. I am sad to say she died on July 9 from colorectal cancer
Words cannot express the vast grief I feel over losing my closest girlfriend of nineteen years, Deb Hubsmith, two years ago to Acute Myeloid Leukemia and now Rowen. It seems as if life wants me to get an unbelievable understanding of grief, loss, death and cancer in this lifetime. Endless tears have been shed in the past few months accompanied by a sense of shock that two of my most cherished sister friends have left this realm at the young age of 46 and 47. I am grateful for my resilient faith in my ability to jump over every hurdle but it is not easy. Months ago I doubted If my heart could survive another dramatic loss like this. Due to a strong support system, the horses, Syris, my family, dogs (we have adopted Rowen’s dog Satya by the way), spiritual practice and a steel inner strength I am healing, thriving and greeting each day as it comes. I will survive and am learning to be grateful for each adversity that comes my way, as I know it’s just another growth opportunity. Truth be told, I am ready for a period of ease without cataclysmic lessons of death, cancer and loss rocking my world!
And now for the magical bee story! For years I’ve been an aspiring beekeeper and this spring felt like the perfect timing to welcome bees to the ranch. If you’ve been following my story than you’ll know that I’ve been receiving bee venom therapy since March. (Bee Medicine) We had missed the deadline to order bees and had placed our faith that we would be notified if a swarm (see definition of bee swarm below) were in the area. June was the end of the swarm season and I had almost given up on my bee wish. Low and behold, miracles occur!
Cheyanna Bone, (Bee Craft) a bee-keeping consultant working with natural and sacred bee keeping practices, received a fortuitous call a few weeks ago. A swarm had flown 30’ high up in a tree at a local midwives house. Note: Rowen was a midwife! Cheyanna safely got the high-perched insects down from the tree. A tiny colony of bees arrived a few days ago at the ranch and are happily buzzing away! Through immense tragedy there are blessings to behold. Perhaps Rowen is smiling down upon us and had a hand in bringing us bees right after her death. At any rate, I am deeply grateful and honored by the serendipitous unfolding of events!
I am still engaged in my full time healing cancer naturally protocol and have my eyes on the finish line, those enchanted words ‘remission’. I have been teaching some one-day Equine Facilitated Learning workshops and Grief Rituals with Horses at Wind Horse Sanctuary this summer. The transformational work with the horses brings me joy and I love to witness how it changes lives.
In short, I am grateful to be given an opportunity to heal and it seems that I will have a different outcome than Deb and Rowen. In light of their death I see clearly how each breath is a gift and I intend to live it fully!
Thank you all for all of your love and support, you boost me up with every kind word and prayer you send my way!
Healing cancer naturally is expensive as insurance does not cover the infusions, doctors visits, tests, supplements and daily care needed to zap cancer cells in a non-toxic manner. You all have been so generous in my healing and I’m deeply appreciative. I still have a road ahead of me and if you felt motivated to donate I would be so grateful! You Caring. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
RGCC Greece test: The test is highly refined; it measures the circulating tumor cell count in the bloodstream. It is not offered in the USA so the blood sample is sent to Greece. In the USA oncologists can’t give results like this, as the standard cancer mode of care does not yet measure tumor cell counts. This test is a method of measuring cancer that is not yet in the mainstream reality although it is offered in other countries. It is unfortunate as it could offer a way to monitor tumor cells rather than the standard chemotherapy mode of killing the entire immune system to ‘heal’ cancer. For more info about the RGCC test please see: RGCC Article and the blog post by the wonderful Doctor V (who’s ‘Greece protocol’ I am following) at: Doctor V Blog
Bee swarm:Swarming is the process by which a new honeybee colony is formed when the queen bee leaves the colony with a large group of worker bees. In the prime swarm, about 60% of the worker bees leave the original hive location with the old queen. This swarm can contain thousands to tens of thousands of bees. Swarming is mainly a spring phenomenon, usually within a two- or three-week period depending on the locale, but occasional swarms can happen throughout the producing season.