Day 12
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Issels Clinic
The day dawned bright and early with the sun around 6:00AM. The night was restless and I pulled the covers up over my head to try to catch a few more minutes of sleep. Glen was up already. Apparently I slept more than I thought though I knew he was up and down a lot I didn’t realize that it had been a brutal bowel night for him. He had been up and down all night and at one point just stayed in the bathroom for two hours straight. How long can this go on before he breaks Lord?
I sighed and got ready for the morning. After a quick shower and eggs with fried left over potatoes for breakfast we were heading back to the Issels Clinic. Already it was getting quite familiar.
We started Glen’s treatment day with meeting with Dr. Christian Issels. He went over the test results from all the weird gadgets they had tested Glen with and informed us that according to his testing – which is very different than blood tests – Glen was responding well to the vaccines given in Tijuana and that we were also to administer at home again. Thank you Jesus! That’s the best news we’ve heard in a long while. It’s too early to see more results yet but we will continue hoping for improvements. The conversation with Dr. Issels was good yet I’m still unsure if anyone understands the severity of the bowel issues and how monumental the losses are around that. Glen has trouble going anywhere and even wearing “protection” it’s not just uncomfortable, it’s downright painful. It’s very hard to stay positive when you are facing something like that. I am extremely proud of him for trying so hard and maintaining an attitude of gratitude and positivity at least half to three quarters of the time. Today was more difficult. Sleep deprivation is severe and used as a form of torture during war. It causes one to be fuzzy and aggravated no matter whom that someone is.
Dr. Issels had Glen place his hand on another testing machine and then take his hand away again as the machine froze.
“Oh, sorry,” I mumbled as I backed my chair up.
Dr. Issels looked up in confusion. “About what?”
“My body is weird and tends to shut down machines, computers, things like that,” I continued as I back my chair into the farthest corner I could go. I was willing my body to co-operate and stop shutting things down! I thought I was getting better but it had been awhile since I had my last set of treatments for Lyme and all it’s symptoms so the symptoms were starting to creep back up again – not with full ferocious fury just yet but enough to be annoying and the joint pain and headaches to throb continuously again. I assumed that was part of my symptoms alongside my “magnetic personality” that for sure was shutting down the computers which is the part I shared with Dr. Issels.
He looked at me with a smile of disbelief, got the computer running again – only to have it freeze and shut down again. He looked at me with slightly more belief.
“It’s just because it’s a PC,” he said.
“That’s why I have a Mac,” I returned. I don’t generally shut those down.”
“Hm,” he looked back at his computer finally getting it going long enough for Glen to take the 30 second test – must be similar to muscle testing but very high tech and testing all of his body.
The doctor shared the results with us. Glen is incredibly healthy – except for the caveat of cancer. That’s a big one.
The Doc’s computer shut down again and I apologized again. He shook his head. “It’s just the computer.”
I walked out the door and his computer roared to life.
“Oh my goodness!” he exclaimed as we watched from the hallway. “It is you!”
I laughed. Told you so…not proud of it but I’m magnetic.
We poked our heads in to see Ken and Ada who was hooked up to another machine that caused your cells to work well together instead of fighting each other. Apparently that machine shut down too…Sheesh!
Glen went for IV treatment and I went to move the car. I drove to the park and had a phone session with a client from home while sitting in the butterfly park. After our session I ate my wrap – same thing three days in a row now because I’m not reacting to it so may as well keep up a good thing!
I got back to the clinic on time for the second nutritional Skype talk with Carly. I knew most of it except for the “how many grams” of sugars you are allowed per meal. She was talking about breads and how bad they are for you especially if you’re eating conventional breads with processed wheat flour, which of course is something we haven’t done for years. Sourdough is the best because it’s fermented. Fermentation means that it’s basically predigested making it easier to digest. She wasn’t fond of the sprouted breads either because of the modernized wheat used but I know that Silver Hills bread is sprouted, alive and uses heritage wheat and spelt so it’s good.
Then she talked about chocolate, which is good and bad. The bad part is the sugar of course. And if you have raw cacao it’s an “alive” food that is only processed at very low temperatures compared to cocoa. I found raw cacao at least a year ago and made my own chocolate with equal parts raw cacao and coconut oil, sweetening it with stevia or when I’m wanting more sweetness a bit of maple syrup. I shared this with her and the group and I think most people were happy to hear of alternatives. Raw cacao is also filled with anti-oxidants, B vitamins and other good stuff including tasting good. Carly added that if you add in coconut milk you’d get more of a milk chocolate. Good to know!
I moved the car again so as not to get a ticket and then decided to go for a walk down State Street while waiting for Glen to finish his last treatment of the day. They move patients from one treatment to another all day long alternating between the IV’s, the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, infrared sauna, massage, psychotherapy, speaking with the doctors, ultra light wave therapy, and more including the cell thing that tells your cells to co-operate – like marriage counselling is what Roberto said! I found that funny as marriage counselling is not necessarily easy. People are in marriage counselling for a reason – they are not getting along – and simply telling them what to do doesn’t help…it’s an art. I was hoping the cell therapy was an art as well!
On this walk I found a comic book store that reminded me of my boys and made me miss them. Josh wasn’t feeling good this week and I was probably more worried about him than I cared to admit. Lyme is insidious and if you do happen to catch a cold or flu it likes to hold on for much longer than the average person because the immune system is always under attack. In a way it’s a good sign to catch something because that means that the autoimmune disease and Lyme is getting better but because it’s so hard to tell if it’s the flu or Lyme it’s always a thing of concern. I know when I “catch” the flu I never actually know until I feel better and then go “Oh, that must have been a virus and not Lyme!” because it’s so similar I just keep going. That probably sounds nuts but I’ve taught myself to operate semi normally as much as possible no matter how I feel. Take my body, emotions and mind by the horns and say, “You aren’t in control of me! I take you all captive in Jesus’ Christ name who lives in this temple so come under alignment of HIS authority…” Then it’s just a “simple” (not really) matter of keeping on keeping on. No wonder I’m exhausted! Yet I do have more energy than years past. When Glen was in surgery both times I took the week off to be with him at St Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. Both of those weeks there was one day where I could not get out of bed because the migraine was so bad and the dizziness so severe that I kept falling over. Crawling to the bathroom was all I could manage hanging onto anything I could so that I wouldn’t fall and bang my head making things worse. Thank God for migraine pills!
The comic book store was interesting. One of the gentlemen that worked there asked what I was looking for. “Something my boys would like,” I answered. “Probably the Star Wars section,” I smiled as I thought of Donovan’s love for Star Wars. I’m assuming he’ll never out grow that. The young adult then handed me an invitation to a salute/memorial for Stan Lee who apparently passed away a few days prior.
“What?!” I exclaimed. “I had no idea! I haven’t watched much news lately.”
Apparently he was around 96 and died peacefully in his sleep. It’s a nice way to go. I was sad though. As their invite said, Stan Lee’s “larger than life” personality will be missed. The Marvel movies will never be the same without his cameo appearances to look for in each one.
I walked out without buying anything but determined to go back after connecting with the boys to actually get them something they want. I walked rapidly back to the clinic and waited for Glen to finish.
As I was waiting Dr. Kim asked us to stop in his office to go over Glen’s blood work results. Glen came out of the bathroom and we knocked on Dr. Kim’s door.
“You’re inflammation is way too high,” Dr. Kim said. “We need to get that down. How are the bowels going? Is the medication helping?”
I wish it was helping. We have to get the cancer markers down so that Glen’s bowels have a hope… Dr. Kim wrote out another prescription for stronger anti-diarrhea medication. Lord please let it help!
I had wanted to go to the laundry mat so Glen could just go back to our suite but there had not been time while he was in treatment so we found it together. We figured it out by going up to the counter and explaining that we were “newbie’s” and needed a lesson in Laundromats. The young man at the counter was extremely helpful. We threw in the laundry and Glen went to sit in the vehicle exhausted. Feeling extremely bad for not having done the laundry already I tried finding us a snack. Someone pointed me in the direction of the grocery store and I found myself at “Ralph’s Grocery Store” again – the same one the taxi driver brought us to. I quickly bought a few items for supper and rushed back to change the laundry over to the dryer. Grabbing it out of the dryer long before it was dry I packed it back into our suitcase and drove us “home” to the Casita so that Glen could shower and rest.
Our poor little Casita was covered in wet laundry that I hung from anywhere I could find with not a small amount of it hanging outside. I made a quick and easy supper with the leftover chicken, some quinoa and fruit and vegetables for a stir-fry for me and for Glen all of the above wrapped in an oat flour wrap. Glen was obviously done so I cleaned up and then it was an earlier bedtime.
Grateful for a day of treatment I listened as Glen’s breathing went into snoring and prayed he would have a better night. “Lord guard us this night and calm down his bowels! Encourage his spirits and place us in your mighty River in Jesus Name! We again and again claim Glen’s life under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and extend the boundaries of his life to a healthy old age. We overcome this mountain by the strength of the Lord and can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Remove all enemies by the blood and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and wrap us up in your hedge of thorns and wall of fire,” I prayed fervently as I do every night. “Oh Father God, hear our prayers and save my beloved husband…” I prayed as I willed myself to picture the River of Life flowing from God’s throne. I drifted off into a dream filled restless state where I was in and out of weird and indistinct dreams all night as I did warfare for my man.