My Body is a Battlefield
A couple of days ago my daughter pointed out to me that I should be resting after my recent bout of radiotherapy. Her point was that there was a war going on in my body.
I thought about this for a while and realised that she had a good point. Here are my conclusions.
My body is a battlefield. I am at war. A war against cancer cells that also have an urge to survive. But I’m pretty certain that my urge to continue in my present form is still the strongest force at play.
“ The greatest victory is that which requires no battle” : Sun Tzu “The Art of War”
Without being overly aware of it I have unwittingly applied this principle to my current situation with cancer. I inherently did not want my journey to a cured and healthy body to be a bloody and violent war. I hate conflict. I have nightmares about violent confrontations in which I have to fight for my life. Even in my dreams this violence, which is normally self protection driven seems abhorrent to me.
I would always choose to resolve an issue with communication and logic when it is possible. I believe that diplomacy should be our first option.
The idea of attacking doesn’t appeal but if I have to defend myself then I will, even if reluctantly.
The protagonists in my battle are the cancer cells and my own immune system.
My weapons are the therapies that I have been learning about and applying over the past 3-4 months and anything that I continue to do in present time that will attack, subdue and destroy the cancer cells.
I found that the more I learned the less I panicked. The more knowledge I had gave me the power to keep a relatively clear head that then allowed me to plot and plan strategies that would result in less conflict and greater success.
“Victorious warriors win first and then got to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win” : Sun Tzu
Apart from a few moments of fear and uncertainty I had decided that I could win this battle without too much bloodshed. It was all a matter of finding the best weapons that I felt comfortable and capable of using. My willingness to learn and a positive and optimistic outlook were my biggest assets. I needed enough knowledge to then have the right amount of confidence to defend and counter attack against my enemy when I needed to.
In order to survive I was very aware that I had to wipe out the opposing forces. Unfortunately this was my only option. But it was based on observations and facts.
While just one of the enemy soldiers still remained breathing my chances of survival were greatly diminished.
My goal had to be total extermination of the opposing forces or at the least those that were actually attacking my body.
I hadn’t thought about in in those precise terms before, but there you go. The battle is happening right now and any side effects that I have are just the effects of the opposing soldiers shooting at each other, the bombs going off and the twisted emotions of the troops battling each other. Both sides want to live, to survive and they are doing everything in their power to do so.
Who is to say who are the goodies and who are the baddies. It is a matter of perspective, as it always is.
But from my viewpoint I know who the goodies are!
Attack, counter attack. The enemy can be preparing for a sneak attack at dawn when my guys aren’t quite expecting it. I don’t really know the dynamics of the battle but it’s a thing, I can feel it happening.
“If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle” : Sun Tzu
What true and wise words these are.
I had no idea what cancer was, how it survived and proliferated, what it did to the healthy cells. It would have been like going to war against an enemy who you knew nothing about. No understanding of their history, customs, language, religion, morals etc. A bit like the Western “democratic” armies who went into battle against cultures like the Vietnamese or Afghans. What chance did they have of defeating an army of which they know nothing.
The outcome speaks for itself.
I also had to speed up my own knowledge of myself. My two biggest weaknesses were fear/panic that would lead me to blindly resisting and a fear of the inevitability of death and the unknown future that accompanies that state. I quickly learned what a powerful tool acceptance is. “Que Cera Cera, whatever will be will be…..”
This led to a far deeper understanding of myself and a healthy acknowledgement that I loved being alive. Alive in all of its’ simplicity and power.
“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity” : Sun Tzu
Personal growth can blossom out of any situation, no matter how destructive, adverse or painful. There is always something to learn, something to realize, something that you can add to your arsenal to move forward into the future with.
I tacitly decided that I would use this battle to improve the overall quality of my life and health and fitness of my body. In many ways I have achieved this. It sounds counter intuitive.
I really do feel healthier, stronger, wiser, more clear headed, more appreciative and more optimistic.
The War
The strategy I chose for my battle is a press/pulse approach. The goal was to put enough chronic pressure on my enemy that they became weaker. Depriving them of food and fuel, creating a hostile environment, knocking out their supply lines. I feel pretty confident that I did this with a very strict ketogenic diet plus oxygen therapy, exercise and IV infusions. Cancer thrives on sugar as a source of food, it uses it to ferment and proliferate. It also creates arteries off the main ones to supply the needs of the tumour, this is called angio-genesis. It also likes an inflamed environment swimming in lactic acid and general inflammation which allows it to multiply and take over more and more territory.
Put simplistically, I weaponised my diet so that my main source of fuel was ketone bodies as opposed to glucose. I did daily testing to confirm that my blood sugar and ketone levels selected this assault on the cancer cells.
I then embarked upon a “pulse” strategy. This consists of acute attacks against the enemy. Actually attacking the power base that has already been weakened through the chronic stress mentioned above. The weapons I used were oxygen, Vitamin C, Curcumin and other IV infusions, immunotherapy, infra-red sauna, radiotherapy and ketone bodies.
These weapons are adjuncts to each other. They have a symbiotic relationship to each other. One of the principles that I have applied is to use the more natural therapies with the radiation so that my normal healthy cells stay protected while my cancer cells become more susceptible to the onslaught of the radiation. Thus leading to their death.
One thing that I didn’t know until recently is that normal cells are subject to apoptosis (programmed cell death) which allows for new cells to be created, while cancer cells do not die. They just stay alive for years and years which is why they can attack again and again in different parts of the body (metastasis).
This strategy of mine may not be the best one available. But it is one which makes good sense to me. I can see how a farmer can bring his farm back to life by applying similar principles to the soil, turning it from barren dust (destroyed by the man made poisons and chemicals that suck the life out of it) into a vital life giving source of creation and sustainability. We live in the physical universe and somehow “nature” or whatever name you want to give the magic that sustains life, has evolved highly complex, highly workable systems to create, repair and sustain optimum conditions for life to thrive.
Hopefully my NK (natural killer) cells and their backup troops are doing a good enough job to kill the mutants who are trying as hard as hell to proliferate and take over the healthy territory that is still under my control.
The mutant headquarters is located in the lymph node in my neck where they had entrenched themselves after setting up a base there some time before November last year. They almost got away with their covert preparations but luckily for me my scouts noticed something out of the ordinary going on and as more reconnaissance came in it became obvious that they had a head start and had established quite a fortified base.
April 2021, 4 Months after the War began.
Sometimes it feels quiet, like the battle is over. It stays like this for enough time to seem deceptively calm and then out of the blue, there are signs of collateral damage. Maybe it is just the smoke from the bombs and grenades that are still exploding near the enemies camp or maybe it is from the barrage of fire and skirmishes that my troops are creating in their clean up operations.
Then there are other times when it’s just best to enjoy the apparent tranquility of the late night when things go quiet and we can all close our eyes and have sweet dreams.
I feel like I am winning this war. I feel justified in doing so even if it does mean wiping out another species which also wants to survive. My body is my vehicle, and as such I need to keep it healthy and in good shape to experience the myriad sensations and perceptions that the physical universe has to offer. Without my body I may just be “consciousness” or maybe not. But one thing for sure I won’t be able to interact with the “kingdom” that I have created. I don’t really have 100% certainty on that one (spiritual consciousness) but it seems like a good state to be in. I may or may never find out 100% but for now I am more than happy to experience this wonderful state that allows me to be the master of my own universe.
I will continue this battle until I have conquered my enemies. Creation and destruction are facts of life. I don’t really fully understand this but I have a gut feeling that there is a finite amount of energy in the physical universe that just keeps changing form. Destruction seems negative but it does also seem to serve a purpose when it is used to help to bring about new creation.
