I've been in the messy middle. Though I wasn't trying to hide that, I just didn't have words to explain everything that was going on.
Last time we talked I had chosen to forgo conventional treatment and try to get rid of any remaining molecular disease with other tools.
Testing, testing, testing
Part of that journey has been testing frequently for what's called molecular recurrence. I do a test called Signatera that looks for fragments of tumor DNA in my blood. On this test, you want zero. Starting in September, my numbers began to climb. It was minuscule amounts and climbing slowly, but still not the direction you wanted to go. I stayed in close touch with all of my doctors during this time, and finally in February we decided to run a set of scans to see if there was anything visible.
We ran a bone scan - CLEAR! 🎉
We ran a brain MRI - CLEAR! 🎉
We ran a full body CT scan - concerning lymph nodes in the right breast area. 💩
So the next step was a biopsy.
That biopsy was terrible! They couldn’t find anything so they just kept poking. Even the doctor said it was the most extreme one he’d ever done. (That’s what you love to hear from a doctor) 😵💫
In the end they did find some cancer cells in one lymph node, and they turned out to be triple negative.
So now I was at a decision point again. Now we had more information about which cancer type was more aggressive and should be addressed first, and it was triple-negative. But the HER2 positive was still going up in my Signatera test. So once again, I found it very hard to choose a chemotherapy that would attack one type while allowing the other type to grow. Also, the chemotherapy that my oncologist offered me had terrible statistics. It just extended progression-free survival by a few months, at which point you would have to change to a different chemotherapy and continue doing that for an unknown period of time.
Meanwhile, I ran a few tests of my own. With each Signatera interval, I tried different alternative treatment combinations.
I'm testing every month, and during one of those months I did three 72-hour fasts. That month, my HER2-positive Signatera went down, and my triple-negative Signatera slowed its growth significantly.
I also started working with an integrative oncologist who focuses heavily on your metabolic health, and I started an extreme ketogenic elimination diet.
About two months after starting that diet, both of my Signatera tests went down!
Those two things together tell me that I can have a large influence on my healing through diet and fasting. Plus diet and fasting target all types of cancer, so neither one gets a foothold! And the “side effects” are all good ones.
Also, during this time, I found a new doctor named Dr. Katie Deming. She was a radiation oncologist for 20 years and then became an integrative oncologist, and now she focuses exclusively on water-only fasting for cancer. I was very intrigued by the idea of doing an extended water-only fast, but worried that my low weight and low blood pressure would preclude me from qualifying.
After seeing the results from my own fasting experiments and dietary changes, I decided to talk with her. She told me I did qualify, and she would monitor me closely to make sure that the fast was safe.
My next step
So that's what I'm doing! On May 11th, I began a water-only fast. I’m shooting for 30 days.
WHAT?!
Trust me, I can’t believe it either.
I will share more about the science behind fasting like this, why I chose it, and the details of the fast I am doing next time. I might send updates during the fast, depending on my energy levels. I really have no idea how I'll feel!
