I prefer writing in my blog when I have good news. But I promised to write quarterly and it’s time. I don’t have good news, but maybe this is another form of the lesson to not judge news as good or bad. Whatever is, is. I have a monthly blood test that includes a cancer marker, CA 27.29. Normal is 38 or below. Mine hasn’t been normal for several years, but it has been going down gradually for about 1 1/2 years. This month it jumped up the most (+84) it has ever jumped in one month. It is now 310. My oncologist isn’t worried; she says she has patients with that number in the thousands. It’s not the actual number that concerns me; it’s the big jump.

I expected it to take a big jump down this month, for several reasons. I have been doing the mistletoe treatment for 4 months; I have mostly eliminated sugar from my diet (I even quit putting raw local honey in my tea); last week at the IONS conference, I was the recipient of a very powerful prayer/intention circle that envisioned me as whole and healthy. With all this intention and dedication, how could my cancer marker numbers go up?

I’m feeling confused and not knowing what, if anything, I need to do differently. There are many options and I would be willing to do most of them if I knew it would make a difference. I’ve been reading Nasha Winters’ book, The Metabolic Approach to Cancer, and I attended her very powerful workshop. I have been impressed with how much I could be doing that I haven’t been. Would it really make a difference if I ate 9 cups of vegetables a day? Would it be worth it if I went on a ketogenic diet? Do I need to chelate the heavy metals out of my body? Would IV Vitamin C be beneficial? Would it help if I did more strenuous exercise regularly instead of just walking? The list can go on and on. I don’t have the bandwidth to do it all. What matters most?

I have often said that one of the gifts of cancer is that it forces one to trust one’s intuition, because there isn’t one answer that fits everyone. I have to determine what I need. This is a familiar place for me, and it’s still not comfortable. I know I need to get quiet enough to hear the whispers of intuition.

In an online daily meditation from Richard Rohr, he says:

“Mature spirituality will always teach us to enter willingly, trustingly into the dark periods of life, which is why we speak so much of ‘faith’ or trust. Transformative power is discovered in the dark — in questions and doubts, seldom in the answers. Yet this goes against our cultural instincts. We usually try to fix or change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. Wise people tell us we must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the dark path of contemplative prayer. Grace leads us to a state of emptiness, to that momentary sense of meaninglessness in which we ask, ‘What is it all for?’ It seems some form of absence always needs to precede any deepening notion of presence. Desire makes way for depth.”

One of the strategies that was identified in the Radical Remission research is deepening one’s spiritual life. That sounds like a good idea whether it is beneficial for eliminating cancer or not. Maybe that’s where I need to start — again.

I am feeling grateful for you, and to you for reading my blog, and caring. I feel like I have a huge network of support and it gives me comfort. Thank you for keeping me in your prayers and seeing me as healthy and whole, as I see you.