Chest Tumor

In my sleepless night last night, I thought about writing about this chest tumor, too, but got too tired.

I noticed that it seemed bigger over the winter and it seemed to really start growing in February. I am not sure when, but it was about 2cm long. Now, it's about 8cm long x 6cm wide. But I'm counting the curve of the tumor going down to the skin, too, as part of the length and width. If I were to just measure the "top" part (not including the sides where it meets my chest bone), it might only be 6-7cm long x 5cm wide. It sticks up about a 1cm, in other words, and that centimeter enters into the measurement.

I remember thinking awhile ago that it was my body's way to push the cancer out of my system. And, it seems to me, but memory isn't great, that it started moving up and out in February, when we on Mt. Kilaeua, the volcano, in Hawaii. (See, there's a great metaphor - my tumor is erupting from my body - getting its start when I was on the volcano.)

So, I'm trying to think of this thing as my body trying to remove the last vestiges of anger and resentment I may still have over my life. It's a physical manifestation of what is holding me back from stable disease status.

I started visualizing last night that what needs to happen is the herbs and aloe gel and turmeric and everything else, creating a pathway under the skin to begin remove dead and dying cancer cells. It just occurred to me that maybe I should visualize underground lava tubes taking up these cells and washing them away in my body.

You see, I have to visualize the creation of lava tubes, too, because the skin and tissue there has been so damaged and compromised from radiation and surgery. This means that the lymphatic and blood vessel system is scarred, so chemotherapy and targeted treatments can't make their way effectively to the tumor to kill it.

My treatment options for this damn lump are limited because of the compromised tissue. I can't have it radiated again because it has had its life time dose of radiation. Surgery could take out the lump, but it couldn't take out the whole lump, so it would leave a big wound there that would be hard to heal because cancer retards healing. The only thing they suggest is to find a chemotherapy regimen that might work to shrink the tumor. So, I continue with Herceptin and Zometa for that - and I want to add Tykerb to the mix.

That is why I tend to think the only thing that might be effective is a topical treatment - like an ointment to kill the tumor from the skin side, not the lymph/blood side. That is why I've been using this turmeric/mushroom/melatonin concoction on it. I'm going to let the wound care nurse look at it and see what she says. I've been trying to visualize that this concoction is creating a healthy pathway (i.e., lava tubes) to clear away dead cancer cells. And also that the concoction is killing the cancer. It doesn't look like it's grown, actually. Now it needs to shrink. It occurred to me that the tissue underneath was so damaged that maybe it couldn't take away dead cancer cells, so hence the visualization. Maybe the concoction can create a healthy escape hatch so the damn thing can shrink and go away.

I'll keep you posted on this eruption . . .

UPDATE: I saw the wound care nurse who looked at that tumor today. There's a circular area, about 1cm+ round, that's white and superficial. She thought that it might be necrotic tissue. It's not ready to be debrided yet. But I was happy to hear "necrotic", which means it's dying. Right now, I just want the damn thing to die and go away. I also know, however, that it might mean that I end up with a wound there that never heals. I'll deal with that later . . .

Treatment Updates

I still haven't started radiation treatments yet. I'm not all that eager to start, but I will do them because there are still a few hard nodules under the skin, which are presumably little tumors growing up from the lymph channels. I may, however, not do the full six weeks, depending on how my body responds to them. When I asked the rad onc about doing less to begin with, her reply was that it would be 3 months before she knew whether or not the radiation treatments worked - in other words, we could do less treatment, but since it takes awhile for everything to settle down, we wouldn't know whether or not there is still cancer there for 3 months. And, if it didn't work, then I'd have to do the radiation treatments again. Medical science just doesn't know or hasn't studied whether doing less would be just as effective as doing more. So, they stick to the standard treatments.

But my thinking is that the medications I'm on - Xeloda and Tykerb - have or are sensitizing the cancer and it will be easier to kill with radiation. I also take a five mushroom pill (3 of which have anticancer properties), melatonin (which has been shown to stop and/or reduce breast tumor growth in mice), and turmeric (shown to be effective for skin disorders and studies have shown it to stop tumor growth in melanoma). So, I guess I think doing a little bit of radiation will tip the balance in my favor - kill the suckers - and then the meds will be able to do their work.

The open skin wound continues to heal. I've recently started putting turmeric paste over a larger area than the original open wound - the skin over the implant was dark - and now the whole area is weeping more. I need to change the dressings twice a day. The way I see it is that my body is expelling the cancer through the fluid drainage.

I don't have as much lymphedema over the right ribs as before - I do some lymph massage everyday - and interestingly, the whole area is fading again. The area was getting redder AND more swollen after I painted my bathroom, so my guess is that a lot of redness is from the lymphedema, not the cancer. But as I said, there are a few little nodules that are little tumors, so I will submit to radiation, too.

Have a good Tuesday everyone!