Medically it was relatively peaceful week. - I started the week with a Holistic Healing/Acupuncture session, which was an excellent way to rebalance after the chemotherapy drugs and seizures from the previous week. - I only had one mild seizure episode and that was at the end of a day where I had probably pushed a little too hard at work. The management of my company asked me to give a presentation twice during the day to all the employees about the Market Development work I am doing. Part of the reason for this was that they wanted the rest of the employees to see that I was back and actively involved. I was very pleased to do the presentations, as I enjoy that, but it was draining. I skipped Toastmasters that night and stayed home to rest and worked from home the next day. The Tuesday night support group at the Gathering Place was pretty intense. Because a couple of the participants were being confronted with it, there was extensive discussion about quality of life versus continuing to take treatments that were not working and causing pain and other side effects. It became clear to me that many of the males, and the group is running about 50% or more male, are unfamiliar with doing anything besides what the doctors prescribe and toughing it out otherwise. Most of the females clearly have other resources upon which they are drawing. I reached out by telephone to one of the guys who was in particular distress. I shared, more fully than I had so far, about the aspects of the complementary treatment approaches I’ve been using and followed up with this email message to everyone in the group: “I got a sense last night that providing you with some of the details around the complementary treatments I am doing might be of interest: - As soon as I got the diagnosis that the removed tumor (all visible in one piece YEAH) was a Glioblastoma Grade IV we launched into research mode. - I quickly became aware of the Block Integrative Cancer Care center Block Integrative Cancer Care Center in Chicago. We contacted them for the first available appointment. - I went there with 2 objectives: Second opinion on what my local docs were recommending (they concurred) Recommendations on complementary aspects (we got a whole lot of stuff) - They also prescribed a range of vitamins and supplements. - I have found it useful to have the dosages and usefulness or not-usefulness evaluated periodically by a holistic healer that uses a muscle testing technique to evaluate both the individual and entire complement of drugs and supplements. I do NOT modify the prescription drug dosages based on this but do adjust the vitamins and supplements. This is the current regimen. - I had immediately shifted into strong prayer, meditation, and visualization prior to the surgery and honestly felt as a participant in the surgery. I kept it going and found the book Love, Medicine and Miracles by Bernie Seigel to be very informative. I would be more than happy to talk about this with anyone that feels the need for more. Blessings on all your journeys. See you next week. Craig” With being more public about the holistic healing/acupuncture stuff I’m doing I got to thinking a fair amount about why I see validity in this. What I’ve come to as a response to the question “How can you believe this stuff” is: 1. I have a degree in Physics and work experience in engineering. 2. The engineer in me obviously wants to measure, touch, feel, etc. the truth. 3. The physicist in me recognizes that, as we explore deeper and deeper into the sub-atomic realm, things shift from being material to energy as the basic building blocks of what we experience, at the macro-level as material. 4. If we build an understanding of the human body back up from there, the material aspects that western medical science measures and analyzes emerges but so does space for energy-based aspects that western medical science does not have the tools, yet, to measure….many eastern medical practices have been tapping into this for centuries. 5. The medical doctors keep commenting on how strong and healthy I am, and we clearly see the response in my health and bloodwork from the nutritional intake and supplements I’m doing. We also had a delightful visit with Susanne’s brother and his wife, who drove down from Toronto. Friends Stephanie and Steve came for lunch on Saturday and brought a picnic lunch, so that was fun, too.
Why am I writing this blog?
- Craig Farnsworth
- Euclid (Cleveland), Ohio, United States
- Here I share the amazing spiritual journey I began on July 19, 2007. I received the diagnosis of a golf-ball-sized tumor on top of the left parietal lobe (motor functions) of my brain. I had severe symptoms all up and down the right side of my body and had received an MRI scan of my brain. In August 2007, I learned that my diagnosis was a Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). This is a common form of fast-growing brain cancer with a challenging prognosis. That's the external story about that moment in time. In the spiritual world I found (actually more like it found me) what I came to call the Fact-Based Spirit-Guided Path, and I began an amazing journey. After October of 2008, I lost the use of my right arm, and in early 2009, my cognitive abilities were struggling, and treatment options ended. My wife, Susanne, then began doing most of the blog postings, with my review and input whenever possible. I continued to apply the Fact-Based Spirit-Guided Path as the adventure continued. My soul then flew to the Kingdom of God on July 1, 2009. Thanks for your interest in my journey. Craig
Susanne's Perspective
During this entire journey, my wife, Susanne, had an entirely different kind of experience. Initially she added comments to some of my posts describing her experience of the moments I discussed and offerred perspectives on our relationship. In the latter stage of this journey, she is writing the blog, as I am no longer able to do so. I am truly delighted that she is doing so. Susanne and I work together as marriage educators/relationship coaches and she has written many books on preparing for and strengthening marriages so you can count on her comments to be insightful and poignant.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
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The rest of the story…
I got my own re-balancing treatment done on Monday – Jin Shin Jyutsu -- which was very helpful (http://www.jinshinjyutsu.org/). It was great having my brother and sister-in-law for a quick visit Wednesday through Friday. They were very agreeable to tackling a helpful to-do list as well as socializing and my brother driving Craig to and from work.
My sister-in-law Arpi and I began the process of organizing and cleaning out the large storage room/attic on our second floor. After a few years of getting a home-based business going and dealing with both my own and Craig’s health issues, parts of our home have been somewhat neglected. Organizing things is a stress-relief endeavor for me, so I’m tackling some long overdue projects. And it has been good to see the piles of things to be given away and thrown away grow!
My brother Daved and Arpi went with me to Toastmasters Thursday evening while Craig rested. They drove, too – yay! It was their first time attending a meeting, and they enjoyed it. The three of us left Craig in peace to work the next morning and we spent 90 minutes at Half-Price Books finding bargains. They left Friday afternoon, so Craig and I intended to make it to meditation that evening, but we just were too tired to budge.
Having Stephanie and Steve over for lunch on Saturday was such fun. We have lost touch with both of them in recent years (some of you may remember him showing up at our wedding in a leather skirt as a practical joke and Stephanie hosting our surprise wedding shower), and it was great to reconnect. And I didn’t have to cook, either. So, breaks this week on the driving and the cooking both, always a bonus! As we have mentioned before, Craig and I often need outside assistance with getting us laughing and having fun (our I Love Lucy re-run videos only get us so far!), so it’s great to have friends come and lift us up. They contributed good ideas for marketing the new Happy at Home, Happy at Work book too. Yay! Stephanie (a nurse and medical consultant) is going to help me prepare a version of the book for medical workplaces, and Steve has many connections with the book-selling world.
It was a relief to have Craig’s seizure activity ease up a bit this week. He’s now cutting back quite a bit on the steroids, so a bit shaky and cranky at times. I’ve been in hormonal cranky space, too, so we get a bit testy with each other, but overall not too bad. The coming down off of the steroids is always a bit tough. But they do seem to have significantly improved his walking, and that was the goal.
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