Embracing the Journey, Part 3: Here we go, again.

There comes a time when you know you are on the right path, you know many things are going the right direction and then, all of a sudden that direction and path completely take a massive left turn into uncertainty. For most this leads to shock, resentment, confusion and doubt. I made a conscious decision to allow myself to feel those emotions, but then I chose to take a deep breathe. Many deep long breathes. I took a step back and attempted to look from the airplane’s view of life. A look above at 10,000 feet, away from the intensity of being in the shock, resentment, confusion and doubt. This, in turn gave me insight into the whole picture.

in·sight

ˈinˌsīt/

noun

the capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing.

Insight is not necessarily answers, but more of an understanding of what is happening at an emotional, spiritual and physical level. Insight allows us to separate the emotion from the reality. Don’t get me wrong, I have felt many emotions these past few weeks, but insight has allowed me to stay grounded. It has allowed me to move past all the questions that do not serve me well. Instead I continue to learn. I continue to look back and see where the challenges have been and the areas where I am to remain open to. I realize now I had that gut feeling, the intuition that something wasn’t right after the hernia surgery and we were trying so hard to help his recovery. I see where in our attempts we still have a lot of learning to do such as bringing micronutrient deficiencies to the right balance. We have done many things right, but as we all know there is no way to learn it all and figure it all out so we must depend on others to help us. Follicular lymphoma is that bug that won’t go away. Or at least, that is the perception for 99% of doctors and patients. To me, we will be that 1% that will figure out how to make it all go away, but in the meantime we will learn how to live life while figuring it out. Living life is in the NOW not the “later” or the “when this,” “what if” or “if this.” Nope in the midst of Ryan’s continued healing journey we will live.

I will leave you with this . . .

“It’s always the perspective in which we frame our language that inspires us to keep going as we navigate the mysterious terrain of what it means to be human.” #WFTR ~Ryan D. Luelf

To gain more understanding of Ryan’s current health situation here is an update from Ryan posted today on his Facebook wall:
There really is no way to actually write this, share this & put it all out there, so here we go friends. 💥

If you want DETAILS of my story just take the time to review our blog —–> theyololifeblog.com, written by Caroline throughout my journey of cancer.

NOW, to bring all of you up to speed in a short amount of time . . . 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

. . . . . Diagnosed October 2015 with Stage 4 b-cell follicular N-H Lymphoma with metastasis to the spleen and bone marrow along with a collapsed right lung with a pleural effusion at diagnosis. Several visits to alternative clinics, multiple naturopath doctors, lots of self healing & 2 months of a conventional immunotherapy drug called Rituxan. All of that led to a 100% CLEAR PET SCAN December 2016. I’ve of course continued with an anti-cancer and overall healthy lifestyle in every way possible as many of you know.

In late April this year I ended up having double inguinal hernia surgery and in mid-May the removal of an abscessed tooth. I haven’t been the same since. I have been sick with continual colds and my labs were all out of whack post surgery (our apartment we lived in for 2 months during the transition to our RV contributed – see Caroline’s blogpost on that). Swollen lymph nodes popping up again on my neck and groin area, and a recent reaction (see pictures of NASTY BLISTERS in comment section below 👇🏻) : that’s when we knew something wasn’t right. Just over 3 weeks ago at the end of July I had a pet scan in Mexico (last one was CLEAR in December 2016), the results revealed malignancy in 6 areas, 4 as before & 2 new. Mild ascites was revealed & although the tumor load is NOT what it was in 2015, it was evident we had to refocus & address this immediately.

I’ve been undergoing treatments at Chipsa for the last 3 weeks while we determine our game plan moving forward. I would say that our wisdom from the journey thus far is to be INTEGRATIVE in our approach from this point on and put all options on the table.

On June 25th we left Tulsa, OK, in our Motorhome. We have thoroughly enjoyed the RV life & are so thankful we can literally decide where we want to live at any time. We landed in San Diego in late July for easy access across the border to Chipsa. In case you haven’t followed us recently. We sold everything and bought a 40 foot class A gas motorcoach with plans to travel for a year+ and home school the kids because #YOLO, but we are now having to live day by day again and be 100% flexible at all times! It is what it is.

Yesterday, August 14th I had a paracentesis of the abdomen area and they drained 4 liters of fluid at Chipsa. This is the first one since June 2016. I was recently referred to a TOP ONCOLOGIST named Santosh Kesari with Saint John’s Health Center through an Alternative leader at CHIPSA that takes a more INTEGRATIVE approach. Dr. Kesari is open to many different ideas including allowing protocols that CHIPSA and my other INTEGRATIVE DOCTOR will be using to help me heal (although they can’t administer them). We can all work together! We met with Dr. Kesari today in Santa Monica, California, to discuss all the options he feels we ought to consider. I’m in pain, something is hurting since yesterday, so I’ve been admitted to the hospital & we are making sure nothing serious is going on such as an infection or something. I’ll be in hospital for another day or two here at Saint John’s just outside of LA.

We are also now working closely with an INTEGRATIVE DOCTOR in New Mexico who believes in alternative strategies as well as specializing in GUT HEALTH and healing all deficiencies which I have both currently. We are able to do all of this remotely and I’m undergoing some extensive Micronutrient testing along food allergies/sensitivity testing, heavy metal testing, parasites, etc. this week to determine how we can heal my GUT and all my deficiencies. We have realized that the hernia surgery did a number on my gut and digestive system as I was still on a healing path prior to surgery. I had gut and liver issues before surgery and they were magnified after surgery. It was most certainly a turning point in the wrong direction, but not sure how we could have avoided it.

In case you are wondering my CTC count (Circulating Tumor Count) was
7.7 in June 2016,
then 6.9 in December 2016
and most recently 5.4 in June 2017.
I have been trending downward, but it is now obvious cancer is still an issue for my body. Instead of continuing to focus on healing my overall body (as it was evident from the downward trend in CTCs) my body had to focus on the hernias/surgery and my lymphatic system started backing up again. My Nagalese test results from June 2017 was 2.0 which is below the line for malignancy, but still too high. These are both good indicators for us but do no tell the whole story. Such mystery in all of this. 🤔

At this point we literally have as good as it gets from the standpoint of healers, oncologists, alternative medicine doctors, etc… plus our own 23 month journey to rely upon. We are loved, supported and one with SPIRIT. This is so important we feel as we navigate this new and most difficult challenge.

Our chosen response is one of LAUGHTER, but also filled with EMOTION. We choose to frame our perspective as what can EVEN THIS lead to? I plan to live and find out, that’s for damn sure, LOL 😂😜🤣

Life is a GIFT! We are full of GRATITUDE! It’s HARD! It SUCKS! We have QUESTIONS! It’s a PUNCH in the GUT (no pun intended:) — it doesn’t add up if one is still in a state of consciousness where one thinks all can be “figured out” . . . But through all of this we find “Peace in the Mystery instead of the Certainty.” MYSTERY is at an all time high for us currently -:) 🙏🏻

DISCLOSURES:

* We are not sure we have the capacity to answer questions, but feel free to ask.
* We are not sure of our exact plans going forward as it’s literally moment by moment at this time.
* We don’t know if this is technically the same cancer that never left or a reoccurrence. Based on pet scan the conventional world says reocurrence, but based on CTC maybe not. Either way I have dis-EASE at this given moment.
* We aren’t looking for answers, solutions, an inbox full of links and recommendations. We have more than enough to consider and several very trusted people on our team bringing everything known to man to us already to consider.
* We will make our decisions with love, data, consciousness, wisdom and humanness and choose to move forward not being paralyzed by the unknown.
* We ask that you READ this thoughtfully and carefully before commenting.
* We ask for you to think and ponder before commenting. Sometime silence is best. We trust your judgement on what you choose to say or not say.
* We ask that you imagine being in our shoes and what that must be like for us before commenting.

This post is simply to let all of you FRIENDS know what is going on. This post is to request your:
~ LOVE
~ SUPPORT
~ PRAYERS
. . . and most of all for your WITNESS to what we are facing as fellow humans.

Thank you Steve Factor on such short notice for rescuing us & watching our kids last night while Caroline is at hospital with me.

💛~ We will need your HELP friends as it’s time for us to shift into full receiving mode at this time. If you want to HELP, just contact us directly. What that HELP is exactly, we are unsure but we will need this community of people more than ever as we embrace the next part of our adventure with cancer ~ TIA

P.S. I want to thank Pamela Donnan for trusting her intuition tonight, Matthew Crow for calling me today along with Jake Clark on Sunday. I want to also thank Theo & Kimberly Hanson for being our local fox hole buddies in CA who are just WALKING THROUGH this with us like any AMAZING FRIENDS would for those they deeply love. There are many more of you who just WITNESS to our situation by text / message and you are making a WORLD of difference in our world & I’m forever grateful this morning! Last but not least I want to thank Donna Kolosvary a Facebook friend I’ve never met in person who wrote this on a thread of mine last night, having no idea just how much it would mean to me PERSONALLY:

“Ryan D. Luelf ~ we are all individuals and some immune systems adhere to the diet and some don’t – it doesn’t mean the person fucked up – sometimes CANCER just takes over, period!”