March 15, 2007: One treatment down and 7 more to go...

My treatments are every two weeks - in between I am supposed to climb back out of the hole and try to make myself strong for the next time when they are going to knock me down again. The first treatment was 10 days ago. Every day seems to center around either killing part of me or boosting me up so that I am strong enough to be knocked down again.

There is a famous breast cancer surgeon, Dr Susan Love, (same name - so odd !!) who calls it "slash, poison and burn." Hopefully the new directions in research that are being taken will bring in something more humane and effective. It's the equivalent of their giving arsenic to cure syphilis back early in the XXth century.

My regular MD gave me some "tonic" last week. It's made of plants, a dark brown in colour and as nasty tasting as you can imagine. Now I am bouncing off the walls with energy. Perhaps if I could meditate that would balance out the zinginess.

My oncologist is quite happy to co-ordinate the treatments with all the vitamin and herbs, etc that I am taking. It took me a while to find someone open minded enough but I finally did. While he doesn't work at Sloan Kettering but at NY Presbyterian (next door), he uses Dr Norton's protocol (the Sloan Kettering breast cancer GOD). While Sloan Kettering may be THE place, I had a friend die a couple of years ago after they misread her x-rays --- so no where is perfect. (Her family is now rich from the law suit - but has no mom. Enough said.) NYC is full of incredible world class people - the challenge is to find the most humane ones.

Finding a surgeon was also a hunt: the first was a smart looking woman in a tight skirt, 4" heels and a bevy of beautiful secretaries who all made you feel plain, vulnerable and pitiful by comparison (which was my state of mind anyway, when I first discovered the tumor). She coldly announced my options, glared at me through hoody eyes when we announced we would, of course, be seeking a second opinion, and my husband, Curtis and I left shaking. Two weeks later we were again sitting and waiting, Curtis trying to look cheerful and me huddled under my hospital gown, close to tears. In marched another top-of the-tree surgeon, but this one had a grin and a bow tie. Any guy who wears a bow tie has a sense of humor. He gave us more or less the same choices and handed me his card with his email and said please shot off any questions and we booked a date.

There was only one place that I felt he slipped up and that was not ordering the test that they do in California and several other places which analyzes the tumor tissue to see what kind of chemo is most likely to kill your particular cancer. Most MD's don't ask for it as many insurances don't pay for it. When I asked the oncologist about it he said that it wasn't 100% reliable (neither is chemo) but still useful and that unfortunately one needed a live sample for the test. I had no live sample as I had not set it up beforehand - one has to do a lot of the "work" oneself and the choices are numerous and confusing.

While searching for an oncologist, I read and read - the internet is both a curse and a blessing. I came across a Ralph Moss, who writes very useful cancer reports for the general public. (He was recently on the New Your Times page on progress in cancer work.) I also found the Dr Susan Love Foundation with a good website.

People keep inviting me to lunch with friends of theirs who have had breast cancer and who have "survived." The first thing you look at is to see whether or not their eyelashes have grown back because you can't believe they actually will. They do.

I ordered the wigs and the turbans and waited with dread for the first poisoning. I also had to finish a root canal first - one is not supposed to do anything during the treatment that would introduce possible infection.

I found a lovely Chinese doctor who gives me acupuncture and who always comes into the room, sits down beside me, puts his hand on my shoulder and gently asks how I am doing today. Makes you feel that you have a big brother who is going to take care of you. Curtis is so intrigued by the idea of electric circuits in the body that he is reading a huge tome by a Swedish MD, head of a large hospital and formerly on, the Nobel prize committee (when dealing with cancer one always states the person's credentials as there are so many quacks out there). So now both Curtis and I go twice a week to have pins stuck in us. He is regaining the circulation in the pads of his feet which he had been slowly loosing over the years and is pleased as punch.

My goodness, this has turned into "an essay."

Lastly, I found a hospital study on the internet done in New Zealand where 85% of the women didn't loose their hair by sitting under a casque emitting electric impulses several times a week. You are supposed to start 2 weeks before the first chemo, but I found the study 3 days into the chemo. I traced the company who made the machine to Vancouver, called them up and asked if anyone in NYC had one. I was referred to a dermatologist in Brooklyn who sent me to a spa in Midtown. I sit under the casque for 12 minutes while Curtis chats with the owner of the salon, Laslo from Hungary, who told him that he looked just like his father. I think Hungarians are charming just by the fact of being Hungarian. Must be taught in school there. We'll see what happens - so far on day twelve it's still hanging in there - we'll see. :)

The whole thing is like a military campaign. I'm taking a ton of vitamins, get antioxidant IV drips from my GP, have my scalp rubbed and electrically "stimulated" one a week, see the acupuncturist twice a week and try to have a massage when I can. Talk about maintenance!

The thing they say is that you need a team - my "team" is my wonderful, patient husband, Curtis; my family and friends; the techies who work on my website and the printer who prints the cookbooks - they send me flowers and books to read and answer customer emails on the days I can't; my very caring GP, Patrick Fratellone; my DOM (doctor of Chinese medicine), Dr Chen - the man with the needles; the Hungarian technician, Laslo, with the head stimulator machine; my oncologist, Dr Pasmantier (who allows me alternative therapies and who is even a bit interested); my surgeon, Alex Swistel (the man with the bow tie and the grin who gives out his email address to his patients), My Columbian dentist, Martha (who does flamenco in her spare time); my French massage therapist (who lectures me); Ralph Moss who writes the Moss Reports on the internet (a voice of sanity). Opps - almost forgot the nice people in the wig store....

Off to eat a second breakfast of incredibly healthy things, drink my wheat grass and raw vegetable juice.