Diary No. 14

Last night we used music only. It was kind of a nice break from having to be so active mentally during the session (even though the Sutphen CD is for her, I end up getting into it too and moving my hands in accordance with it).

One interesting thing occurred - while the night before she had seen a grey shape in her aura, which I cleared out, last night when I asked her to identify the size and shape of dis-ease she saw in the same place, in her aura instead of her body, and this time it was red with jagged edges, kind of like a sunburst shape. I wonder what that was? Is that what cancer cells look like.

For someone who never meditated outside of some yoga classes she took while she was in her '70s, my mother is sensing some pretty interesting things, which seem really metaphysical to me.

Diary No. 13

Last night - same, used Dick Sutphen's Healing Force self-hypnosis CD. Mom found it a little long.

I usually ask her if anything went on for her, and she usually has had nothing happen. Last night it was similar, but her perceptions were heightened. She saw me with a light yellow (gold?) aura around me. That was cool.

I also decided to use the aura cleansing technique from the Rand Advanced Reiki Training class (Kathie Lipinski in my case). You have the person visualize the dis-ease. In this case, she saw her tumor falling apart from the CyberKnife treatment. However, when I asked her if it had a particular shape and had anything to teach her, she saw a gray amorphous shape, kind of kidney-shaped, in her aura. It was telling her to eat her vegetables and be nice to people (she's already a sweet person, so I'm thinking that had to do with communication style). She saw me take it out of her aura, which was great.

Something about the night before last that I forgot. When she first got home from the hospital and I did Reiki on her while she was in bed, she wanted to know if I saw any of our relatives who had passed. I have never done so. She saw her whole family one night when we were doing the Reiki session (she's the last one left). Very interesting.

She's gotten over the crabby thing. That's nice. We also sat out in the sun for a while today - nice for the vitamin D production.

More on tonight's session tomorrow.

Diary No. 12

Mom went for her cyberknife checkup yesterday.

Nothing much, the doctor was glad the procedure had alleviated her symptoms, and we're scheduling a CAT scan to see exactly how much the tumor has shrunk. He basically said to try chemo or just "enjoy the time you have left." My mom didn't want to hear that at all, and pretty much blocked it out. But the Dr. was happy about her lack of pain, and we've got to go for a CAT scan in 2 weeks so they can see how much the tumor has shrunk. Love that the only side effect she had was a little tenderness in the stomach area too.

Today we went to the medical oncologist, who did blood tests. Depending on how high (or low) her tumor markers are, he will probably put her on Gemzar and Tarceva. Told her they don't cause nausea or vomiting. The side effects are supposed to be "relatively" mild, but "relatively" is something else for an 84 year-old woman. It's still scary. However, Pauline's other pancreatic cancer client, who is in what seems to be remission, has had very few side effects, and is off traveling right now. So, lets see. I'm going to Reiki whatever I can, and hopefully Pauline will be able to do something with the meds as well.

He was thrilled and surprised that she had only lost about 1.5 pounds since the Cyberknife treatment, that she wasn't jaundiced at all, and that she really feels great. Also, he thought her surgical incision was remarkably-well healed considering how "fresh" it is.

Even though the blood tests are scary in a way, I can't wait to see them because I know they'll be unexpectedly low in tumor markers, etc.

Something is definitely working....and I was thinking that since I do Reiki in the area of the scar every night, that definitely has to have something to do with this.

Heh heh heh....

Funny thing, I was trying to tell him about the smoothie with the supplements, but he didn't really care. So, onward and upward with this. Better to have someone who thinks they're irrelevant than to have someone who thinks I've got to stop.

Tonight I'll go back to doing Reiki on the table with the Dick Sutphen Healing Force CD. And the foot, leg and back massage with jojoba oil.

This is very good.

I'm admiring how unafraid my mother is about this whole thing. She's been a queen of denial all her life, and right now it seems to be serving her very well!

Diary No. 11 Worry, Energetics, and Reiki

Mom has come down with a urinary tract infection. Not a severe one, but we'll see a doctor this week. Don't want her immune system having to work overtime on that, it needs to address the cancer now. She has this terrible habit of downplaying any sickness, so I should have called the doctor this morning, but she thought she was fine. Now in the afternoon she told me it was feeling acute again. Back to cranberry powder, vitamin C, water, and crankiness. I hate that aspect. She's usually easy to take care of, but when she has these cranky days sometimes I want to throw in the towel.

That and financial worries were actually what made her cranky today. When she's like this she makes sure she complains about a few things, mostly that she can't eat or there's something not put away in the kitchen.

Some days, like today, I just have a hard time tolerating the whole situation. Does she want to stay or go? She seems to want to live, but other times life seems to be joyless for her, especially when she focuses on her dwindling bank account, and living with a daughter who's getting her PhD way too late in life for financial comfort. Days like this make me wonder how long she can keep getting better if she lowers her energy level with things like this, and it makes me really sad.

Last night we did have a nice Reiki session though. I did the pendulum and her chakras were not in the greatest shape strength-wise when I checked with the pendulum. Later they were better, but only more balanced.

I also noticed that when I was doing Reiki on her, her whole body was pulling it, all except for the solar plexus/heart chakra area. I did it anyway, because that's an area that's really needed, I know with my head, but my hands weren't telling me anything. It was odd. When I went over to her right side to work on the liver area a little more, yes, I did feel my hands heating up a lot, and mom commented that they felt very hot there.

I also had a feeling that I wanted to go work on her feet for a while. Again, she loved how hot my hands got (Reiki feels so good on the feet!).

Well, this afternoon, Pauline came over and validated some of what I was feeling.
First, she did her own pendulum on the chakras. They were VERY still, except for the root, which was surprisingly good. But that demonstrated to my mother exactly what effect worrying has on your energy system, which supports your immune system.

First, she did a little affirmation work with my mother around the financial worries (I really think this aspect of her personality had a huge effect on her immune system, and let the cancer emerge). Then she turned on the Dick Sutphen CD while working. Previously, my mother didn't want to sit or lie still for the whole session, but since it's self hypnosis, it gets her relaxed enough to conk off to sleep for most of the session.

Pauline thought the dead energy feeling in the chest area was related to the worrying. By the time she got here, the chakras were really really dead, all except for the root, interestingly enough. After the vortex session, they were back to normal. Phew.

Interestingly enough, Pauline also did some work on the feet area, suggested by her guides. Grounding something?

Tomorrow is the cyberknife checkup. I can't wait to see the doctor. OK, mom's got a UTI, but all around she's energetic and looking great.

Diary No. 10 "Every Cancer has its Own Energetic Signature"

Now my mom is starting to have some symptoms that I'm thinking may be her liver getting overloaded with debris from the Cyberknife radiation treatment. Two days of bad headaches, one day of not seeing well, tired. I'm thinking it might be the liver because Pauline was detecting a gunky liver at the last vortex healing session. When I went online to look up liver cleansing those symptoms were there. I've started to give her Milk Thistle (nothing fancy, just Trader Joe's), so maybe things are moving around.

Doing some fresh juicing as well. I wish I could give her fresh veggie juice every day, but she doesn't like it that much. I have to say, my mom is beginning to get so appreciative of my efforts here that she's really cooperating, even though her stomach always tells her it's never hungry, and even though she doesn't really like the morning smoothie or those veggie juices (carrot, apple, beet, cabbage - esp. the cabbage, which is very anticancer - and whatever else is lying around that's organic. Today I had some swiss chard and left over salad from my organic garden, so in they went. The apples make the flavor better). She likes my cooking, which is good.

I'm in the process of deciding to get away from meat, even fish, as much as possible if I can keep up her protein intake in other ways (very important for cancer patients, or anyone who has muscle atrophy from an extended hospital stay). My way is my "kitchen sink" whey protein shake in the morning. One indication of this is that one day she had some (organic, free range) chicken, which she loved, but which she found a little hard to digest. The next day I made this great thai-oriented tofu recipe, and she assimilated that much better. Fish, we both love it, but it's also pretty loaded with toxins these days, so I'm sticking to a couple of times a week, if that. Better just add Carlson's fish oil to the cottage cheese(or strained yogurt)and flax oil mixture I throw into her smoothie to get the Omega 3s (especially the EPA).

I just came upon a site of a clinic in Quito, run by Dr. Wickman, a DO (website here). I'd never get my mother to go, but I think the doctor has one super-profound statement on his site: every cancer has its own energetic signature. The doctor's idea is to address that first and then have the people do a vegetarian diet. Whether or not you would agree with the rest of what he does, I think that is a profound truth about cancer.

It turns out that this idea comes from Dr. Royal Rife, who did work around this idea in the 1930s. There is a website with info on his work here.

The idea resonated with me simply from what I know about homeopathy -- I've gone to a really great homeopath and after a while you learn that every sickness has its own emotional signature, and the homeopathy goes after that to heal the dis-ease. My homeopath "doesn't go near cancer," apart from giving remedies to deal with the emotional components of adjusting to having it, but still I think there is a larger truth to the whole idea.

The last two nights were good Reiki-wise. The night before last, I was very tired from gardening and we started late, so we just did a music cd, and no massage. Now, I always do lavender aromatherapy as well. On the nights I'm doing music instead of the Dick Sutphen self-hypnosis CD "Healing Force," I tell my mother to envision a great white light coming down through her crown chakra and really energizing the killer cells to gobble up all the cancer cells, like they are little Pack Men. The Pack Men are super energized by this visualization, or that's the intention at least. She likes it.

I'm specifically envisioning the liver and sigmoid colon full of wonderful Reiki energy. In the case of the colon, where there has been a suspicious spot, I envision the Reiki energy causing such a state of energetic balance that anything out of balance cannot survive, and therefore the cancer cells have to be just harmlessly absorbed. I envision no other choice for them as I light up the area with Reiki.

For the liver, I just imagine it illuminated with Reiki energy. I also invoke the distant symbol if she's in bed and I can't reach the spot. Not sure why this occurred to me, but I do feel my hands getting hotter when I do this. One time I actually felt my liver tingle, which to me was a confirmation that my mom's liver needed some Reiki.

I've also started sending Reiki to the Palladin gene - which apparently is the gene found to be turned off in pancreatic cancer patients. I intend for the Reiki to turn on the tumor suppression qualities at the DNA level.

Last night I got in another full session on the Reiki table, phew. For some reason I also wanted to work on her legs and feet a lot - sometimes I get intuitive feelings when I'm doing Reiki, and the feelings are stronger than different feelings in my hands. Her muscles got really atrophied by a week and a half in intensive care, and they're still not really back. That may be what I'm picking up on. But little by little.

All I can say is that my mother by all logic should not be feeling this well at this point. Late stage pancreatic cancer often just takes people right down, especially after their systems are weakened by major surgery. I feel if she hadn't had the cyberknife she would have started going downhill anyway, but the treatment gave her immune a chance to start rebuilding itself (and for me to help her with diet and all this energy work). My mom looks and feels better all the time, aside from her legs, which I attribute to not moving around enough or doing her pt exercises enough.

What I think is happening is that all the energy work is working together with the nutrition and some emotional work we do when we have our intimate little Reiki sessions. Healing is happening on many different levels.

Her first bloodwork "after" the Cyberknife and all of this other complimentary medicine will happen on Thursday. Wednesday is the Cyberknife follow up.

A full report scientifically confirming how extraordinary my mother's response has been will follow when I get it!

Diary No. 9 Reiki and Pancreatic Cancer

I am continuing to have mom listen to the Healing Force self-hypnosis CD while I do the Reiki session. What's nice about it isn't just the suggestions. The subliminal section at the end is just music, so you feel like you're going back to a regular Reiki session.

Up until last night I was reaching over onto my mother's bed to give her the Reiki sessions. Luckily I have short legs, but there's a limit to my ability to put up with being uncomfortable EVERY night. So, last night I got her to use the Reiki table. What a difference. I felt like I gave her a more balanced treatment (although I did want to focus on the liver/pancreas (liver because after the Cyberknife I'm sure it's doing overtime getting rid of all the flotsam and jetsam) and sigmoid colon (there was a spot there that nobody biopsied - were they just giving up or did they not think it was significant. Sucks either way.).

I pulled out my rose quartz pendulum last night after the session too. I had once gone to a wonderful workship about clearing chakras with Reiki and crystals, so I was curious about what effect the session had had that I could actually test - all of the chakras were moving at a very nice speed and force. I'll have to test the "before" next time.

I'm still giving her my "kitchen sink" shakes in the morning: Organic frozen berries (usually strawberries, but sometimes raspberries or blueberries mixed in - Trader Joe's has organic berries for cheaper than the pesticide-laden ones at the grocery store), Jarrow's unflavored whey powder, Barlean's flax oil, Carlson's fish oil (I'm using brands because internet research leads me to think those are the best brands), resveratrol, quercetin, green tea extract. One of those things is slightly bitter, so sometimes I use a little agave sweetener (low glycemic index - sugar feeds cancer, so keep your glycemic index in mind when preparing foods)and some vanilla flavoring. I now add ground flax. Using Red Mills for now, but it's recommended using freshly ground. The golden flax is overpowering ground, so I bought the brown. Haven't tried it yet.

I am becoming fascinated by the Budwig Protocol. Google it. German scientist believed that if you thoroughly mix the flax into the cottage cheese, and add freshly ground seeds and some berries (there's a whole program attached to this, but this is the center of it) that it will strengthen the immune system. It has worked on lots of hopeless cancer cases. Something to do with electrons. Anyway, so when I'm preparing the shake, I often get out some cottage cheese and mix both the flax and fish oil (lemon flavored) into it. Something to do with the sulphurated protein in the cc that makes the body absorb the flax better. Heck, I figured it must also help with absorbtion of the fish oil too. So, I don't do Budwig, but I tried this aspect of it.

Is this all working? Well, my mother is doing really unreasonably well. After the Cyberknife treatment she stopped having pain in her side, and got some of her appetite back (all won't come back due to stomach surgery). She's also a lot stronger and can walk half way up the block with a walker. All I've heard of is pancreatic patients crashing and burning after a couple of months, but not here. It has now been 2 months since her stomach surgery, and once she got out of ICU the trajectory has only been upward (well, thanks to the Cyberknife especially).

What does Reiki have to do with this. Well, I believe it's working on a lot of levels. Since it is relaxing, it's helping her own immune system to work better. But judging from the things my mother is saying during these sessions, I'd say that it's working on an emotional level as well (SHK for sure). Pauline still comes over once a week to do vortex. I'll have her come over weekly until bloodwork indicates it's safe to do it every other week. I think the vortex is a really valuable adjunct right now.

Diary No. 8

Last night uneventful. Dick Sutphen's Healing Force seems to have an amazing power to both relax and make cheerful. Even though by the end of the CD it's always pretty late, my mom always ends happy and relaxed. This is a true gift.

I also decided to do some more aura clearing - from the entire abdomen area. I feel there are bits of dis-eased energy that somehow were loosened up by both the Cyberknife radiation and all of this Reiki, so I feel like getting them out of her aura. To her it feels like grass clippings in her aura that I'm clearing. Pretty interesting.

There's also emotional healing going on in the midst of all of this. While putting my hand on an old broken leg injury I got the impression that her lower back disk issue (which over time has given her a waddle) might have been related to that accident (crack the whip ice skating or the heartless doctor who set the leg without anesthesia). She said that maybe it started there, but it was somehow related to all the stress from the responsibilities when we were kids. She has NEVER conceptualized this like that before. A true indication of healing in my book.

On the healthy living side, I've discovered that modified citrus pectin may help prevent metastases, so I ordered some through Amazon.com today. She needs more fiber in her diet, so what the heck. I might as well hit 2 issues at once.

I also finally got my mom to drink fresh vegetable juice that I make. That was another sign of progress.

Today I had to tell her that there is a spot on her colon. We've never been told whether they found it was cancer, but my mom didn't know about it all. She is feeling so much better that she was trying to refuse to have Pauline come, so I had to tell her (it's all about the money and the unreal/out of paradigm issues she has with energy healing, except when I do it, because there is a great deal of intimacy that we have developed through me doing nightly Reiki, which I feel is also healing in and of itself).

Reiki and my mother's pancreatic cancer. Diary No. 7

Two sessions - last night was uneventful. My mother woke up on Mother's Day really full of energy and life. It was really wonderful to see. She also ate an entire lobster dinner - an entire 1.5 lb lobster, some potatoes and sauteed baby arugula, with some ice cream for dessert.

Reiki last night was uneventful. I was kind of tired, so I only did 1/2 hour. With a plain Reiki CD.

Tonight was a little more eventful. I returned from teaching this evening to find her a little uncomfortable - that area of her tumor was sore and her back ached. This is to be expected, I suspect, when you're killing it off with such intense radiation - inflammation.

So, I gave her a dose of Maitake D fraction tincture, IP6 Inositol, and tumeric. I put the Mushroom tincture in some freshly made juice - beet, celery, carrot, apple, and a splash of oj. I'd like to make it less sweet but otherwise she won't drink it. The resistance to the supplements disappeared today with the appearance of the pain again (she had no pain last week while undergoing cyberknife treatments). She was also worried about what she'd be like in 6 months. We're not going to have any idea of that until the check ups and blood work at the end of the month. She still says she wants to live 10 more years and is determined to heal herself. Her mind kind of got blown out by the anesthesia, so it's hard for her to really organize her thinking enough to take charge of anything, but lets see. It's a good sign in any case.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the treatment are the massages I give her - jojoba massage oil scented with lavender and chamomile. She really feels soothed and gets relaxed, although I always have trouble getting the left side of her body to really relax - like her left foot is always wanting to flex. I wonder what kind of tension causes that.....

She's really beginning like that Dick Sutphen Healing Force CD. He's forceful and not wishy washy, while still being gentle. By the end she's always happy and relaxed. I do Reiki while she listens to it.

At the end of the session tonight, I figured I should do the aura clearing I learned in the ART class, given the radiation she received. Tonight she told me she feels fresh and polished when I'm done with it - interesting.

She also was visualizing old grass clippings as I was clearing her torso area. Very interesting as well, since I was also thinking of something like that - little bits of old energy that's not useful anymore, so it's healthier to get it out of there. And she feels all polished afterwards.

Now if we can only get consistent eating, without feeling like her inner child has come out in full force around the food issue, I'd feel like she's really going to be successful with the self-healing.

Reiki and Pancreatic Cancer. Diary No. 6

Quick update on today's energy healing sessions. Yes plural. I'm going to report on the Vortex healing sessions that Pauline comes over to do weekly, as well as the Reiki sessions that I'm doing every night with my mother. We've become a healing tag team and things are working synergistically I feel.

Vortex healing seems to be able to work in a more self-directed, different way than Reiki. The practitioner can use his or her will to guide the energy. In this case, Pauline is a psychic and medical intuitive, so she can get stronger (or should I say louder?) guidance. When I'm doing something it's just a strong intuition that comes through.

The vortex healing session also has an order that involves relaxation, energizing, and then the work. I find it fascinating. I've received healing sessions where I get distinct energetic sensations where the healing is taking place, or where Pauline is putting in "structures."

Anyway, this afternoon my mother's 70-year old leg injury (a broken tibia from an ice skating accident as a chile) was hurting her. It has NEVER hurt before this, and I thought that was fascinating. She hurt it when she was the end of a whip at a night skating session, and her skate caught on a bracelet that had been frozen in to the ice. Her father found it the next day, and she thinks she still has the bracelet in her possession.

I'm not sure whether there are mother issues around the injury - i.e. not emotionally nurturing enough during the recovery (I'll tell you why in a minute), or whether it's an emotional issue around the fact that the bone was set without anesthesia, which obviously was extremely painful, or whether it's related to the fact that her mother was always trying to get her to eat things she didnt' want to as a kid (as you can imagine, I'm having this trouble right now). Whatever it was, I'm sure the pain came up to get healed or as part of the process of healing. It was hurting my mom quite a lot actually.

I thought the pain could be related to a nurturing issue because Pauline got the sense that my mom's mother, who was a lovely person but who, as a traditional Victorian-era WASP was not apt to be physically demonstrative with her children, was at the session and Pauline felt that she was regretting not being more physically affectionate with her children. Hmmm, somehow this is related to the emotional component of my mom's cancer. Perhaps my mother's problem communicating her emotions, or sometimes feeling them in the first place comes from this?

Tonight the Reiki session was similar to the other ones, except my mom felt my hands were especially hot. I invoke the heavy hitters for help - Drs. Usui, Hayashi, Mrs. Takata and all the ascended Reiki Masters, Jesus, Mary, Buddha, St. Luke, archangel Michael and Gabriel, as well as anybody else in a helper capacity who wants to help, and give thanks in advance for the blessings received.

I was tired, so it was only 45 minutes. I got the idea that I needed to help my mom engange her free will to ask for a healing miracle from our helpers/angels, etc. I was asking myself, but spiritually one really has to have the will engaged and ask for the help, because it can't really come by itself, unless of course it's your relatives (why? - this planet being a free will zone, everything we do is by free will, right down to solving problems. Those in spirit aren't allowed to help unless we ask because they can't violate our free will. Some people don't actually want help, and others - like me - forget to ask for it enough).

Tomorrow is another Cyberknife treatment. So far, I see no side effects. In fact, today, 2 days later, she's looking better than she has in months.

The first session was less than 45 minutes. I'm going to have the Dick Sutphen Healing Force self-hypnosis CD piped in as the music this time. Lets see what happens.

Reiki and my Mom's Pancreatic Cancer. Diary No. 5

I guess I'm a little behind on this.

On Sunday night, I did the Dick Sutphen Healing Force CD a second time while I was doing Reiki on my mother. This time she stayed more alert but relaxed. After the relaxation section when the suggestions started coming on she suddenly said, "this is probably really good." Then we just did the rest of the CD, which ends with music and subliminal suggestions.

That was the night before we went to do the Cyberknife radiation treatment. She was fine after that, but a little tired by the afternoon. The only problem she had during the 45 minute treatment was that the mold on her back was uncomfortable.

Monday night I went back to "plain" Reiki using the Reiki Magic/Merlin CD. We were both very tired from not sleeping well the night before, but I still did the full hour.

Last night(Tues) a very interesting thing happened. I did Lavender aromatherapy for the first time, and I also decided to use the aura cleansing technique I learned in Advanced Reiki Training (which I took with Kathie Lipinski - of the International Center for Reiki training. She's a nurse here on LI. The only reason I'm not doing Master level training with her is that there was someone who lived a lot closer - she's a fabulous teacher).

For the aura clearing from the ICRT school you extend your energy past your finger tips, and then ask the person to visualize the area of dis-ease - color, shape, and what it might be telling you. You are supposed to ask the person if they are willing to learn from it, but I just asked my mom if it was saying anything.

Astoundingly enough, without having seen the doctors' description of her tumor, she identified its correct shape and size. She then said it was pink. I'm wondering if that's the irritation from the radiation.

When I asked her if it was saying anything, she just said that it wanted to get out of there. I thought that was her projecting her feelings instead of going deeper, so I didn't work with her on that too much.

HOWEVER, about 5 minutes later she suddenly said, "you know, I think worrying about money can give you cancer." While it's certainly not cause and effect, since cancer is multi-faceted dis-ease (genetic, environmental, emotional, dietary), she did correctly identify one of the sources of her own emotional dis-ease, which I thought was a huge breakthrough.

She explained how money was always at the back of her mind, and she really constantly worried about it. To put it simply, this kind of thing can really depress one's immune system. It surely damaged her energetic bodies. This is a person who doesn't really have too much in the bank, but who owns a house that she surely can get the equity out of if necessary, and who for that reason doesn't really have to worry - except that she wanted to give us a larger estate. The fact that there isn't too much money to inherit has much more to do with my father's lack of concern to provide for his wife in a life insurance policy than anything else, but that's my opinion.

So, I tried to make her understand that although a reverse mortgage isn't ideal, it's certainly a viable option, and that sometimes life comes out not the way you want it, but you have to be flexible and go with the flow.

I also was explaining how to meditate by following the breath and trying to make that empty space between inhale and exhale larger, so your mind calms down. I think that would really help, but I think I might have to start her with guided meditation CDs first.

I also now think she needs to do abundance affirmations, in addition to physical health ones. That would address the spiritual malaise that is feeding the physical dis-ease.

Tomorrow and Friday we go for the remaining Cyberknife treatments. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get her to drink strawberry (frozen organic ones) smoothies with a good powdered multivitamin, fish and flax oils, resveratrol and quecertin, and green tea extract. Sounds like a lot, but the fish oil is lemon flavored and doesn't affect the taste of the shake. However, because she had the stomach surgery to bypass the obstruction, she has no appetitite and gets filled up just someone with a lap band procedure does. She's also got swallowing issues. This is by far the most challenging part of her illness so far.

On the supplements, except for the resveratrol, which I'm giving her because in vitro it has been shown to kill pancreatic cancer cells along with quercetin. In vitro isn't the same as in vivo, but considering that her tumor is bisecting her duodenum, her stomach contents do hit it, so to me it's the next best thing!

This morning mom's looking better - better color in her face and the energy around her seems better - less dark. She gets very tired after she eats - in this case half of a smoothie (saving the rest for later), and really hates food now. That's also really sad because she has always loved food. Like she's living some food hell too.

She has some tenderness in the lower rib area, but not enough to take a pain killer for. Considering that some doctors think she's only got a few months to live, this is all wonderful to me. She does seem much better.

The Reiki Sessions - My Mother's Pancreatic Cancer. Diary No. 4

So, I finally did Reiki while my mother was listening to Dick Sutphen's self-hypnosis CD, "Healing Force." She's gotten to love the Reiki sessions. When she's ready to go to bed, if I'm not downstairs with her, she just washes up and waits in her bed. It's really very sweet.

The first time we listened to the CD, she was talking through the full-body relaxation that Sutphen does with you, so she really only got the suggestions in a semi-relaxed (ie Reikified) state.

Last night was different. We set out to listen to the whole thing. By the time he got half way through the relaxation part, she was asleep. I was wondering whether she was really benefiting from it aside from possibly subliminally. Well, I was really pleasantly surprised at one point to see that she was really "in" the zone. Although she was snoring intermittently, at one point Sutphen counts back from 5, saying that you will open your eyes and be alert and aware. So, here my mother is sound asleep, supposedly, and when he gets to the number 1 her eyes pop open!

She quickly went back to "sleep" or wherever she was, but she seemed to be awake during the section where he puts in the suggestion for your mind to exert a powerful healing force on your body, and that your body is filled with healing energy, etc. She started snoring toward the end of that and then stayed asleep throughout the subliminal section where there is just nice music.

I pretty much just let her stay asleep after that.

Monday we're doing Cyberknife radiation. I am extremely excited about it. Missile technology to send high doses of radiation only on the tumor. And only 3 times. A good friend had it and had zero side effects.

I've also been giving her multivitamins in a formula that has a high dose of Vitamin C, but the other day Pauline told me that her oncologist 10 years ago told her to stop taking antioxidants before radiation. She was especially worried because I was giving her a gram of C. I'm cutting it down to be on the safe side, but I think this radiation is so strong that it won't matter either way. There have been a few studies showing C having a good effect with radiation though, so I'm confused and torn (btw - cancerous tumors take in Vitamin C because it has a molecular structure so like glucose - which the tumor uses to grow - so the theory is that it could protect the cells - but that doesn't take into consideration the fact that cancer cells have an abnormal metabolism). In the end, who knows.

From what I've read, I probably won't be doing any harm due to the nature of this treatment. The cyberknife people also had no opinion on it one way or another.
I have read a recent study showing that resveratrol and quecertin kill pancreatic cancer cells, and that resveratrol has been shown to sensitize cells to radiation in vitro. Due to the location of my mother's tumor, cutting across the duodenum, that seems practically in vitro to me, so I'm giving her those things. Also, extra Vitamin A just for next week. Since A is a fat-soluble vitamin, her doctor wants me to cut back on it over the long term.

She's liking the whey shakes also but since they're rich (flax and fish oils) she sometimes gets worried they'll make her too full. However, whey protein is the most easily assimilated protein powder and protein is vital to cancer patients. I put in a splash of orange juice for flavor and then add frozen organic berries, some almond milk or water, and then powdered vitamins and Maitake D mushroom tincture (although that is supposed to be taken on an empty stomach, so I'm not sure it works to put in the shake - she won't take it alone, so I'm stuck doing it this way).

So, Reiki is part of a total healing program for mind, body and spirit. I feel that the relaxed mental state it puts people in is as important as the relaxation the body gets from the energy.

Two new things I'm investigating: the Budwig protocol (flax oil and cottage cheese as key elements in a vegetarian diet, with relaxation, detoxification, and sunlight elements) and Essiac tea. I now know too many people who swear by the second thing not to try it.

A friend told me that the stuff they sell at the pet store is much cheaper than at the health food store and that they're the same (this was after telling me that she had a dog who outlived all expectations on that stuff, as did someone else's dog. Another friend had her mother go into remission from terminal gall bladder cancer with radiation and Essiac tea, and she herself takes it as part of her recovery from breast cancer). I bought the powder to make my own - more economical. It's worth a shot. It's only herbs and in the quantities suggested nontoxic. Vamos a ver.

One objective result:

We have a wonderful new geriatrician as a physician. Wow, you never know how bad your doctor is (although only my mother couldn't tell that her old doctor had been an out to lunch, disrespectful ass), until you get a great one. Anyway, he had never seen my mother before but told her that she looked terrific, no qualifiers (i.e. for a woman with cancer, or for your age, etc.) She also doesn't have swollen lymph nodes either. I thought that was major. By all rights she should.

I'm definitely doing something right. The Cyberknife will be a huge help now, but I'm convinced that the healing program that's developing here is in the right direction at least.

The Reiki Sessions and my Mother's Pancreatic Cancer - Diary No. 3

Last night my mother fell asleep for the entire Reiki treatment! A first. She might have been tired from seeing this wonderful new geriatric physician we found. Wow, what a find. Brilliant, nice, and compassionate! If you're on Long Island and you need a physician for an older person, Dr. Lawrence Rand in Bellmore is a gift to humanity.

She even dreamed - and talked a little. New as well.

I had a LOT of Reiki coming out of my hands last night. That might have had something to do with it. Because we were both tired, I didn't do the Sutphen self-hypnosis CD, just some nice Reiki music.

Every Reiki session is different. Even if you're working on the same person every day.