Cannabis oil update

As many of you know I decided to take the leap to medical marijuana in the form of cannabis oil. After a few weeks of getting in the system at my Licenced Provider and getting stuff straightened out I finally got my order and got to it. I've been taking my cannabis oil, a.k.a booster juice (that's my name for it around the house, but my Mom calls it jungle juice lol), religiously for a week now, and I gotta tell you the results are pretty damn fantastic already! 

MRI results are in. Horatio sucks.

We met with my oncologist this afternoon for the results of my latest MRI and it didn't go as well as I'd hoped it would have. Horatio keeps growing and is just being a fucking dick. But here's the bigger problem, treatment options available to me at this time. Pull up a seat and grab a cold drink and let me explain.

Choose Your Own Adventure

I was never a fan of the Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was a kid, and I'm really not a fan of choosing my own adventure in life when the path can lead me to death faster. As many reading this know, the surgeon's appointment didn't go as expected, and the last 2 weeks have been pretty eventfully uneventful. For those that don't know, I'll try to bring you up to speed. 

The Chemo Conundrum

This week I finally obtained a Neurologist, a nurse, and dietician that is familiar and on board with a ketogenic diet for Type 2 diabetics, SCORE! Very informative discussions were had with my dietician regarding being in ketosis, and it's something I've opted to not enter until after surgery for various reasons, provided I am a candidate for surgery. Which brings me to the next subject: Chemotherapy. Feral and I have had extensive discussions regarding this latest challenge, but chemotherapy in particular.

Chemo Costs

You may be shocked to learn that some people have to pay for their chemotherapy treatments in Canada, but every year thousands of Canadians are left scrambling to pay for their cancer treatments. I was one of them. I learned in 2014 that my chemo drugs weren't covered by the Province, but it was only recently that I learned why. The chemotherapy drug of choice for brain cancer is temozolomide, an oral drug filled at a pharmacy and taken home, and that is where the problem apparently lies. Because you are getting your drugs from a pharmacist and administering it yourself at home and not within the 4 walls of a hospital it is considered a prescription drug and not a treatment.

Wait, Stress, Repeat.

I really need to figure out how to get a handle on my stress, and I think returning to the gym is going to be the way to go. I'm itching to get back to the gym but I hate the thought of joining and potentially having to cancel my membership within the next 4-8 weeks due to surgery because my surgery in 2010 had me out of commission for a year. Well, for bending over and lifting anything over 5 lbs, etc, so it would kind of render the gym useless if surgery were my route The only good news if you can call it that, is that today I did speak with my surgeon's secretary. She informed me that my file has been triaged but since the Doctor has been off for a few days due to the holiday weekend he hasn't even had a chance to look at it. I hope to receive a phone call soon after he's looked at it and hopefully get this next phase underway. For now, I wait.

~Tara

It Is What It Is

As I sit here staring out the window peering into the grey sky as the rain falls, I have the chorus of "To Love Somebody" by Blue Rodeo blasting in my ear. "You don't know what it's like, you don't know what it's like, you don't know what it's like...." eventually those lyrics are followed by, "to love somebody, to love somebody, the way I love you." A beautiful song by an amazing Canadian band. Music is the one thing that has carried me through the years, and I'm leaning towards during this new battle. I will admit though, that with the latest revelation of a new tumour in a new location in my brain I'm feeling a little more than defeated.