I Cancer Can Can Part Deux

An update, treatment information, and cost breakdown

Alright, Substakistan, I know you’re not used to getting posts from me this frequently, but I figured since this post gazes at the naval a bit more than usual, it’ll be skipped by most. This is mostly for all the folks who have contributed funds towards my healing. I wanted to provide full transparency as to where the money goes and what my plans are for the near future. This is also for those who are seeking alternative methods and interested in knowing what I’ve done. I am at, what I consider to be, the midpoint of my cancer journey. If you missed the announcement six months ago, here it is:

I’ve been asked to spill the tea about my holistic treatments so I figured I’ll give you the bullet point version and if you want further details, you can check out my video documenting my journey below.

Part of the reason I wanted to document my journey is because I ended up going to Mexico for alternative treatments and since lots of medical tourism takes place there, you can believe that there are many snake oil salesmen interested in those sweet American dollars. Playa de Tijuana is rife with cancer clinics that prey on desperate people only to send them home sicker than they arrived. I wanted to document where I was and what I was doing so people could assess on their own if my path was appealing to their sensibilities.

It is important to remember that cancer is a custom-made disease that most probably results from accumulative factors and therefore, the treatment too ought to be accumulative. No one-size-fits-all blanket over here. Some of my treatments will sound familiar, some not so much so, and some would wade deep into woo-woo territory, but hey, remember that your mind plays a big role in propping up the results of that which you believe and pay attention to. Hence the placebo and nocebo effects.

First, the backstory, in a nutshell:

I knew it was cancer before I got the official diagnosis in January because my lymph nodes had acted up about a month and a half before I discovered the lump in the breast. I cut off my sugar intake immediately and started researching cancer to better understand what I was dealing with. As a matter of fact, after the mammo (which I can’t believe I agreed to) and the ultrasound, the radiologist who had to come and deliver the bad news told me I took it really well since my reaction was nonchalant but I just already innately knew what it was and only needed the official paperwork. To put it all in perspective, my hapless GP had sent me to get a diagnostic mammogram (as opposed to a routine screening) and only placed the order for that instead of for both a mammo and an ultrasound in the event of a suspected cancer. So I sat in the waiting room for hours while no one could get a hold of her to push the order through and the radiologist ended up calling my insurance himself and convincing them to green-light the order. Of course, during that waiting period, is when my friend Monica randomly texted me and she is the one who makes the Coley’s Toxins (I’ll explain further below) so that felt like a sign from the universe and I was on my merry way to Alternative Cancer Land as you will find below.

After I (and my lowest form of government insurance) got placed on the cancer conveyor belt, the oncologist, whose mask covered his entire face while he tried to sound empathetic behind it, blinked twice really slowly when I asked him if he offered any treatment that isn’t cytotoxic. It went literally like this: “Do you have any treatment recommendations that aren’t cytotoxic?” *muffled, behind the large surgical mask* “Cyto…toxic?” *blink* *blink*. His recommendations were the “standard of care” which consists of chemo, surgery, and radiation. That’s it. Then off to the surgeon consultation I went where I was told that any surgeon who performs breast surgery without chemotherapy first should be sued for malpractice and I thought, ‘damn, this guy a lawyer too?’ I never went back to those two. There was no way I was going to relinquish my agency to them.

In the interim, I began compiling information. Many of you emailed me and left links in my comments and I watched videos and read books and I started building a Trello board with all the information and resources. I will share that publicly with the world once I’ve reached the coveted NED status, hopefully by my next and final update on this cancer journey. Since Isaac Middle did my astro chart which told me my SHTF phase would start in late 2023 and clean up by early 2025, I’m hoping that I’m handling my 2024 cancer journey as best as one can.

I changed teams and transferred to Northwestern where although the oncologist and surgeon also recommended the “standard of care,” they were both sympathetic to me trying out alternative methods first. Although the surgeon tried to leverage her years of experience to convince me to take her advice, she eventually backed down when I explained that every person in my family who has succumbed to cancer in a relatively short amount of time (and there have been a lot) had followed the well-intentioned advice of their super experienced cancer docs. I truly hope my pigheadedness doesn’t come to bite me in the ass.

I felt pretty strongly about keeping conventional methods way on the back burner as last-ditch efforts. Instead, after a fundraising campaign by my friends I headed out to Tijuana’s St. Andrew’s Clinic accompanied by my mom which you already know if you have been following my story. This is the breakdown of treatments and their costs that I have undertaken that would not have been possible without the generosity of my real-life friends and those of you I’ve met through Substack and the conspiracy pits of the internet. I subsidized by selling stuff on Marketplace and selling Bitcoin (at quite a disadvantage, but you can only hodl when you’re not actively trying to save your life) and maxing out my credit cards (because fiat at this point is just monopoly money, right?) There were also a few people who offered very valuable in-kind support: Mebendazole by V.; organic produce by Paul and Diane; SoulFlo energy healing time by Tami, Daine, Stefan, and Sharon; Reiki and Reflexology by Northwestern Wellness; sauna and gym time by Marvin; Southwest miles by Judy; body vibe machine for lymph system therapy by Wendy; variety performances by various artists to raise funds for treatment; Amazon gift cards by Mathew; remote healings by a few whose names I can not divulge; childcare and rides by my besties. Numerous words of wisdom and spirit uplifts by all too many of you. I will need several lifetimes to repay all this kindness. I hope the universe knows that I am the kind of person that were the situation reversed, I’d go the distance for a friend or a stranger.

So, in somewhat chronological order, with inevitable overlap, these are the steps I took, when and where I took them, how much they cost, and their impact on my journey:

• 21 day water only fast at the onset of diagnosis in Chicago. I found it to be a free and effective way to trip up my body’s system and prepare it for whatever I was going throw at it next. I lost 30 lbs of postpartum baby weight so that was a nice side effect too.

• P4 organic juice I ordered online upon a recommendation for its anti-cancer properties. It was about $600 for a month’s worth and although it was nice to break the fast with it and I felt some good energy from it, I ultimately found it too expensive to continue use.

• Daily meditation and visualization. It’s free and I think it has had a tremendous impact on the positivity of my spirit and my general approach to cancer. It can be done anywhere and it can be done with the help of sound healing, guided voiceovers, or just silence

• SoulFlo energy healing about once a month. A two-hour session is $120 although most of my sessions were covered by friends and once by the owner of the business. I love going there and if you’re into meditation, I think you would too.

• Daily writing into an 11:11 journal and a 3-6-9 journal. These are similar to meditation and visualization but if thoughts are powerful prayers, then writing should be doubly so! Again, it’s free and it has impacted my positivity greatly.

• A visit to the Naturopath who prescribed some supplements set me back $250 and although I liked her, it didn’t seem prudent to continue paying to see her just for the positive vibes.

• Energy healings from friends around the world at about 15 minutes every couple of weeks. These cost nothing and I find them as valuable as the meditations. You could say they’re like a group meditation. I would sometimes feel my body buzz extra hard for hours after these.

• Gerson Therapy which was very limiting for the first six weeks prior to my departure to Tijuana. But it has gotten easier since talking to the Gerson specialist and expanding some of the food choices. This treatment is multi-pronged so I broke it down into its parts, but I find it very effective. I have to assert here that I would have found this protocol next to impossible to execute if it wasn’t for my mum who did all of the grocery shopping, prep, cooking, and clean up of food and juicing while I did my regular parenting and work things. I lost another 20 lbs and counting, so that was another nice side benefit too:

  • Diet: organic vegan for the first 6 weeks. No salt, no sugar, no oils, no animal protein of any kind, no tofu, no seeds, no legumes, no nuts, no bread or pasta, no processed anything. After the initial six weeks, it expanded to include liver, eggs, butter, yogurt, and even some fish and chicken once or twice. Still no salt, which has been the hardest. Ever had a potato without salt? Flippin’ hard, fam, flippin’ hard. Post Tijuana, I’ve been rotating between two weeks of an expanded Gerson diet, followed by three days of raw food, and three days of apples and potatoes only. The cost of the diet is about $150/week.

  • Juicing: the first 6 weeks demanded 13 juices a day. That’s about 20 lbs of produce in juice form. No wonder my energy was off the roof! Post Tijuana, I average 8-10 juices/day: one orange, four green, two carrot and apple, and two carrot only. My skin looks and feels amazing and people have told me I look younger. The cost comes out to $100/week and I had to buy a special masticating juicer that was $200.

  • Coffee enemas: the first 6 weeks called for 5 enemas a day. I found it very difficult to hold the coffee in and it took me two weeks to get comfortable enough to be successful. Eventually, I began to really enjoy some solo time from my busy schedule and I could feel the health benefits too. Post Tijuana, I am down to 3 enemas a day. The organic therapy coffee I order directly from the Mam website and it comes to $65 including shipping costs for a two-month supply.

  • Supplements: Here, I am not 100% true to the Gerson therapy as I don’t take the thyroid or liver pills and am now only doing half the potassium salts. But I do find the Pancreatic Enzymes important ($140/month), along with the Organic Lugol Iodine drops ($15/two months), the Niacin ($15/six months), and the Potassium Salts ($23/month)

• A one-time Vitamin C drip that ended up making my arm hurt for two days afterward and didn’t feel like benefitted me greatly, cost me $200. I had multiple drips in Tijuana daily and I can’t even imagine what that would have amounted to if I had to do them in Chicago.

• Tippens Protocol which I felt was helpful, at the very least, in maintaining an immune system boost and preventing the dissemination of the tumors. I was gifted some Mebendazole and Ivermectin by a reader (Thanks V!) and I bought some from the pet supply that the 2nd Smartest Guy in the World offers (scroll to the bottom of the post for his resource links.) I will continue with the protocol for at least six more months to try and offset any free radicals. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Tocotrienol and Tocopherol forms (all 8) of Vitamin E (400-800mg per day, 7 days a week). I purchased Gamma E from Life Extension for $20 for a two-month supply.

  • Bio-Available Curcumin (600mg per day, 2 pills per day 7 days a week). I purchased it from Life Extension for $15 for a two month supply.

  • Vitamin D (62.5 mcg [2500 IU] seven days a week), purchased from Life Extension for $8/two month supply

  • CBD oil (1-2 droppers full [equal to 167 to 334 mg per day] under the tongue, 7 days a week) - this puts me into a deep slumber. I purchase it from the local dispensary $30/month.

  • Fenbendazole (300mg, 6 days a week) and it runs about $240/two month supply

  • Ivermectin (24mg, 7 days a week) and it runs about $210/two month supply

• Tijuana, of course, was the biggest expense. But it was also where I had the biggest impact on my treatment process. I went to St. Andrews because Monica put me in touch with Gar (Gerson specialist) and he was connected to Dr. Cedeño (Surgical oncologist) who is the head doctor at the clinic. In retrospect, I was quite lucky that I didn’t fall prey to the countless cancer clinic shams in Tijuana, the majority of which don’t even have an oncologist on site. The clinic is small and can only care for about 4 people at a time, but when I was there I had the royal treatment as I was luckily the only patient there in March/April. The clinic hosts the patient 6 days a week and Sundays are rest days, although you are sent to the hotel with meals. My medical tourism adventure ran about 35k for the 3 weeks I spent there. It is largely dependent on which treatment options are chosen so YMMV with results. I will break it down further below.

  • Flight fare for two people (this was covered by a friend’s miles, but would otherwise be an expense to consider) $1,000.

  • Crossing the border with an authorized vehicle in and out of the United States is $120 each way, so it amounts to $240.

  • Hotel accommodations for three weeks that included two beds with a kitchen and a refrigerator $1,800.

  • A main port in my vein was installed for easier IV access. Cost: $650.

  • Gerson diet, juicing, and cooking staff at the clinic and Coley’s Toxins (which was my main reason for going to Tijuana) cost $1,500/week for a total of $4,500. Coley’s is an injection that can be received subcutaneously, intravenously, intramuscularly, or intratumorally. We tried subQ initially, which didn’t yield any results, but straight into the IV did. Eventually though, after we were taught how to properly administer subcutaneously, we were sent home with two vials to continue treatment injecting Coley’s every three days. Needles cost $60 for a pack of a hundred. Once I get to a good place, I will only do this once a week. It is worth mentioning that the clinic feeds you and your caretaker (my mom in my case) the Gerson diet so we didn’t spent any money on outside food.

  • Insulin Potentiation Therapy with antineoplastic IV to help slow cancer spread. I opted for the treatment 4x at $1,300/drip for a total of $5,200.

  • Autologous treatment that includes Dendritic Cell and Lymphocytes Activated Killer Cell IVs at $2,400/treatment for a total of $7,200.

  • Daily clinic stay was $4,700/week which for three weeks came out to $14,100 and included weekly blood work and ultrasounds and daily:

    • consultation

    • on-site doctor and nurse at all times

    • lymph node vibe machine

    • infrared ozone sauna

    • localized short wave diathermia

    • infrared lamp hyperthermia

    • Vitamin B17 (Laetrile) IV drip

    • Chelation with high dose Vitamin C IV

    • Hydrogen Peroxide and DMSO IV

Holistic healing might be slow but it usually gets to the root of the problem instead of taking care of the symptoms only and exasperating the root in the interim. Below are my before and after ultrasounds of the breast tumor taken in Tijuana:

2.2cm x 2.4cm

1.6cm x 1.9cm

And my before and after ultrasounds of my lymph nodes, one from Tijuana and the other from Chicago:

3.9cm

3.2cm x 2.2cm

I am including two mini-docs below. The first one is what a typical day at St. Andrews looked like. I figured I include it by itself for anyone who wants to share it with folks who are considering St. Andrews. The second is more of my personal cancer journey and foray into Tijuana which contains the Day in St. Andrews video within it, but it’s longer, holds some funny observations, and ends with the perfect epic finale to my adventure. If you wish to skip the longer video, I will still regale you with the grand finale below in written form.

The longer mini-doc here:

Throughout my almost month-long stay in Tijuana, even with the beautiful weather, the kind treatment from the staff in the clinic, the Sunday walks and hangs at the beach with my mom, I still missed my kids something fierce. I left them back home with their dad who had to continue working so would often leave the twins to feed the little one dinner, bathe him, read him bedtime stories, and stay with him until he drifted to sleep. Everyone had to insta-grow up and even though we talked every morning and every evening via the most torturous shabby internet-driven FaceTime, my heart ached to hold them and be with them. My last day in Tijuana was April 12th. As only serendipity would have it, the twins were on tour with their choir Uniting Voices Chicago and they were to perform at Disneyland that same evening. Well, Anaheim, the home to Disneyland is a two hour drive from the San Diego airport from which we were to fly out in the afternoon of the 13th. And because I had maxed out all my credit cards to pay for treatment, I had an abundance of points that I put towards getting a free car rental and a free hotel (the type that had to exhibit “no prostitution” and “no guns" allowed” signs, but I will not digress into the particulars because they are irrelevant to the thrill of my happy ending.)

My mom and I found our seats and waited with my heart thumping in my ears. I was going to see my kids. In the flesh. And they, after three and a half weeks of missing their sick mom, were going to see me. The choir director told me after the show that they had spotted me from backstage and had begun openly crying. She told me that the rest of the choir had huddled around them in support. That the crying became contagious and other kids were weeping in solidarity. But sitting in the audience with the butterflies dancing in my stomach, my heart leaped to my throat when they came out on stage. I spotted Calvin and Jaxon and the emotions were visible on their beautiful tender faces as they donned their smiles and sang and danced their souls out to “Got a Good Feeling” while some tears uncontrollably would roll down their cheeks.

The reunion was something out of a movie. Even though the choir director had informed me when I inquired about surprising the kids via email that they would not be able to come to me after the performance, my boys burst through the crowd of choir kids, through the fence, and in my arms where they no longer held back the sounds and optics of their emotions. If this was a movie, the crescendo of the symphony would hit here as our bodies embraced and the ‘I love you’s and the ‘I missed you’s were the only things we could say to each other for that moment of eternity. It was the perfect climax of my healing adventure. It was equally healing as all my shots, drips, therapies, and saltless potatoes combined. It was a slice of bespoken cure.

So what now? Well, my tumors enjoyed significant enough shrinkage to be eligible for surgery. I have my hippie reservations about surgery, but I am also fully aware of how energetically and financially straining my cancer has been on my family. Holistic healing is a very slow process and as much as I want to continue chipping away at getting healthier the right way, I’m inclined to release some of the burden by expediting the process via surgery. I texted Monica and told her my trepidations, that I felt like I was sending my body the wrong message that it wasn’t doing its job properly; that sometimes surgery can help disseminate cancer; that maybe I’m just simply buying myself time and not properly curing if I cut the clumps of cancer out. She responded by saying to a.) not have false hopes that surgery will magically fix most of my problems, b.) getting most of the clustered cancer cells out will help my immune system not feel overwhelmed, and c.) under the wounding/danger model, having surgery will further wake up some LK killer cells to come clean up after the party. I resonated with that so surgery it is.

Now, although my shitty government insurance would cover most of the operational procedures, I am not inclined to do the surgery in America. Firstly, I had to talk the docs into considering lumpectomy only (just removing the tumor and surrounding fatty tissue and not the entire breast) instead of a double mastectomy (off with both my boobies!), because why?!? Then the American surgeon wanted to remove the entire lymph system in the right axilla, risking lymphedema and effectively leaving me without a massive disease indicator for possible future recurrence, instead of a sentinel lymph node surgery (only removing affected nodes.) Then, I kept getting pressured to agree to post-op radiation which thoroughly triggered my hippie sensibilities. But the biggest reason is that if I do the surgery in Mexico with Dr. Cedeño, they will be able to take my tumor cells, attenuate them, and create a custom autologous lysate treatment - a service not available in the United States, one that even my American surgeon agreed is a wise choice to eliminate rogue radicals if I don’t plan on radiation. The procedure will take two weeks of pre-op scans, surgery, drainage, post-op care and infection watch, and autologous lysate treatment creation, some of which they’ll keep in case it’s needed in the future, and the rest I’ll be sent home with to self administer in the course of 13 weeks. Whew.

Does anyone else sometimes look at the road ahead and decide they’ll stop looking at the horizon and just keep their eyes on the pebbles under their feet? That’s where I’m at. One of the biggest pebbles I’m looking at is this $15k surgery tag so my awesome friends are throwing a giant party fundraiser in my backyard that is going to feature my twins singing along with The Uniting Voices Chicago Albany Park Neighborhood Choir, and my partner Nick with his band The Berteau Trippers, and members of the band Ode with their new venture Cloud Farmers for whom I created a little AI video here. The street will be closed down for a block party with some family-friendly activities, but my backyard will host music, eats and drinks, raffle, silent auction, and various variety performances sprinkled throughout the day. It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper party. I am so very much looking forward to gathering my community especially since I’m sure I’ve been an insufferable presence throughout the covid affair and so many have come to my rescue this year that the experience has left me soft-hearted and humbled.

For those in Chicago reading this, the bat signal is in the smog filled sky. For those of you whose friendship I cherish only through Substakistan, I will share a highlight reel of the event in my (hopefully) third and last update about my journey. I know some of you have asked me if there is any other option to contribute besides the dreaded and censorious gofundme (and for those who have already given generously, my sincere thank you), so here are a few other choices and please know that as much as I suck and am terrible about asking for funds because I am much better at giving, I am immeasurably grateful for anything that can help me get back to a new weird normal:

Venmo/@VisceralAdventure

Zelle/tonikatodorova@gmail.com

Paypal

Sats

ko-fi/VisceralAdventure

Or, if so inclined and you’d like more of a Substack leaning option, there’s always that button:

That’s all I got for now. I’ll be around sharing some video collaborations this month and catching up on some projects. Thank you kindly for being a part of my journey, friends. It has not been boring in the slightest.