I Cancer Can Can

A personal update

Shortly before Christmas, whilst dancing in the living room braless in my PJs with my 4 year, I wiped some underboob sweat and I felt a rock hard lump. I spent the holidays in anticipation awaiting imaging appointments, although I was still determined to make Christmas Karaoke a good dang time, and then in the first week of January, the day before my twins turned 13, I got the “suspicious for cancer” diagnosis which was consequently confirmed by biopsies in my breast and lymph as metastatic invasive duct carcinoma. Turns out, unjabbed folks can still get good ol’ fashioned cancer.

I wanted to update everyone here (and I’m sorry if this is my welcome post to those who have subbed in the last month; I promise I won’t be taking up your time with boring cancer stacks) as I had to put a hold on all my collaborations while I upended my life to deal with a demanding diet/supplementation/juicing/detox schedule. Last Friday I had a zoom zoom with my Aussie friend Isaac, getting back into the creative lane and it felt good and normal so I imagine I’ll be spending the month touching base with my talented collaborators to reignite our projects. As much as I wanted to keep to my one per month video deadline, January took a lot out of me.

For those that know I’m a big ol’ hippie, it would come as no surprise that I’m trying to heal holistically. Not only do I not trust Big Pharma and their cytotoxic poisons, but ultimately, allopathic medicine tends to go at symptoms instead of root cause, rendering it least efficacious for chronic illness. Weirdly, this Academy of Ideas stack just came out and it so speaks to how I view the whole self-healing methods that I’m just gonna repost it here:

Spontaneous Recovery – The Body’s Power to Heal from Cancer and Chronic Disease

I don’t imagine this would be an easy and fast road, (who knows how long I’ve hosted this cancer forged out of the stressful life I led for a few decades) but my spirits are pretty good and I have been moved to tears (literally and I’m not a cryer) by the outpouring of mental and emotional support, holistic and alternative treatment information, protocol suggestions, remote healings, and wholesome, healthy and hearty laughter. The handful of people whom I privately told about my situation have wrapped me in the warmest of love blankets and I am deeply grateful for the kindness shown by those I’ve met here, on Substack. You know who you are!

I sure do hope one day we get to breath the same air, in the same room, and laugh to tears together. I am working on alchemising all the information I have received into a public Trello board to serve as a place to start for folks like me whose life gets blindsided on a random Tuesday. If you wish to participate as a contributor to such a project, shoot me an email.

At first, I didn’t know how private to keep my diagnosis. God knows I’ve been an insufferable contrarian the last few years and I have managed to piss a bunch of people off. Serendipitously, Dr. Monica Hughes (whom some of you know from Substack as she wrote about Coley’s Toxins, an article I have shared with many people with cancer only to have been ignored and even once, blocked!) texted me out of the blue while I was waiting for the radiologist to come tell me the news,. We have randomly kept in touch through the last couple of years, but the fact that she reached out to me right as I was about to get my own cancer news felt like a sign.

When I first found out about the cancer, I set off on a 21 day water only fast. A friend fasted the first week with me and Monica fasted the last, making the whole experience a little less lonely. I had never fasted before any more than not eating until lunch and having early dinner so this was quite the shock to my system. I freakin’ love food. I’m sure I didn’t do it right as I didn’t take any vitamins or electrolytes and most likely didn’t drink enough water. But it wasn’t all that hard by day three. The skin on my face became smooth as a baby’s rumpie and I lost 30 lbs, 25 of which has stayed off. Most importantly, I was energised to do what I should have done a long time ago - get back to the proactive and physically fit state I used to be in before the birth of my last child and the immediately following plandemic, before the world glitched and I tumbled down all the rabbit holes. I also wanted to send the universe a message: I’m down for this challenge and no matter what happens, I think (forgive me for saying this outloud, mom) it’ll be the gift that I and my household need. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from this through facing my own mortality and perhaps even finding a sense of humor in all of it. At 45 years of age, I cannot complain. I have had a wonderful life. Filled with love, adventure and excitement. Not all that prone to self pity, so I’ll skip ahead to only say that if I get to see my Krone years, I promise it’s gonna get eccentric af.

So, what now? I’m doing what I can on my own while more testing gets done. Lots of meditations and visualizations and some remote healings. Trying to stay positive and not get crushed by the financial responsibilities that lie ahead. Writing daily in my manifestation journal. Yes, lots of woo-woo. Drinking Essaic tea. But also, I’m practicing the Gerson Therapy at home and that requires saltless organic only vegan diet and a juice every hour of the day. Oh, and a coffee enema every four hours. TMI? 😂 I have a bit of IVM and I did have some Fenben but I gave it to a friend for now who is more in need of it. Anyway lots of other things are contraindicated whilst on the Gerson’s and I figure I take it one protocol at a time. Being Pescatarian for a decade hasn’t done me much favours as my blood work also came back as anemic, so who knows, maybe what my body needs is some free range family owned organic meat. Willing to try.

My mother (who has lost everyone in her life to cancer) is by my side relentlessly. She cares for me and helps me with my children in ways I would need thousands of Substack posts to describe. She is an anchor in a foamy storm. My friends Diane and Gillian have tirelessly brought organic produce, mixed funny sounding herbs, provided child care, distracted me from all the stupid cancer thoughts occupying my brain vectors. I have had real life help and I couldn’t be more darn blown away if I was standing in the middle of a nuclear testing site. Bad radiation analogy? Hahaha.

I’ve never been good at navigating well wishes, so forgive me if I crawl into a cocoon, but I will respond when I get done with this week of vigorous testing. I will most likely seek treatment at an alternative clinic which is going to crush me not only because I would have to be away from my children for 5-8 weeks but it will also cost more money than I have collectively made in the last three years. My friends set up a GoFundMe to try and alleviate some of the costs and as much as I suck at asking, I am putting this out there for anyone who might want to help a midlife hippie stick around long enough to see her boys become men.

For those adverse to GoFundMe, there’s always Ko-Fi. For those adverse to fiat, there’s BTC:

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Thank you for sticking around. May the universe bring you all good health and abundance.

Sincerely yours,

Tonika