Loving Like God

In this post I hope to summarize what I have learned on the cutting edge of Treatment so far. Here goes:

Cancer cells are mutated normal cells. They typically go through a series of mutations before becoming full blow cancer. Like CSI, the solution turns out to be in the DNA. In part or in whole, we are what our DNA makes us. The “finger prints” of cancer cells turn out to be as unique or nearly unique as those of its victims.

As I understand it, these are the key genetic changes or mutations that make cancer what it is. Cancer like any other cell has a genetic make up, chromosomes with many genes. There is also a hereditary influence. Our heredity may include cells that are already in a mutated state, but not yet cancer.

There are four crucially important gene changes from healthy cell to cancer cell.

Cells differ from one another, but each healthy cell has a genetic set of instruction as to what it is to do in the body. In a cancer cell that gene is confused so that the cell no longer knows what it is doing, it ceases to perform its proper function.

Healthy cells have a gene that tells them how often to multiply. In cancer cells this gene is mutated to reproduce or divide at a much more rapid rate, differing from cancer to cancer.

Healthy cells have a gene that tells them when to die. In cancer cells this gene is mutated to tell the cell to never die.

Cancer cells are able to reach out and redirect blood vessels from supplying healthy tissues and organs to supplying the cancer tumor.

Cancer cells are also moving targets, because the mutations continue making it difficult to hit the target, and that brings us to the state of the art: “targeted cancer treatment.”

This treatment is designed to identify the mutated cells, and only go after and kill them. There are a great many genetic fingerprints in cancer cells so this treatment is still in the works, further ahead in treating some cancers and playing catch up in treating others.

Burzynski is a pioneer in this field, both his Treatment Clinic, and his laboratory and manufacturing facilities are state of the art. I had opportunity to spend time in both while I was there in Houston. For many years now he has been under attack by “big medicine” from the big pharmaceuticals to the FDA. They have done everything possible to shut him down. Fortunately for us he was seeing success with cancers that no one else was curing, and as of now he is still in business. J The lingering problem is cost. Because the cancer lobby is against him, it has succeeded in keeping Medicare from covering the costs of treatment there.

That’s my summary. Here’s a link providing some more in depth information on the subject:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2075133_2075127_2075104,00.html

The dark side:

Cancer, any cancer I suppose, but certainly “stage IV cancer” is like a silent hurricane. Without a sound much that once was, food, snacks, drinks that once were such a pleasure, even comfort, are, over night, gone with the wind. What to eat or drink becomes a tasteless wasteland.

Time, once so free, so plentiful, so often squandered becomes very precious, and precious moments become like found treasures in the aftermath of the storm.

Time for favorite things is now consumed by medical considerations, designed or so we are told, to clean up the devastation.

Like tornadoes spinning off the main storm whole new medicinal vocabularies come at you with words like debris strewn all over a confused mind with no time to pursue meaning. It is not clear which is better, to duck from the words or let them hit you like so many unintelligible shards of glass, and flying metal.

Time occupied with enjoyable pursuits is now filled with appointments, travel, schedules, keeping track of daily pills, poison and pumps – quantities, frequencies, times with or without foods – no fruit half hour before or after, and on the tweaking goes.

Where there had once been an easy dinner guest there is now a very fussy eater, not by choice, but by compulsion.

Sleeping through the night becomes a thing of the past as new bodily needs become alarms to action.

Not very predictable side effects begin to take their toll on one’s ability to function. Quality of life is sacrificed to some not so sure extension of time in the here in the now, more or less dysfunctional time, but time none the less.

Conversation much too often goes from the pleasures of this life to the concerns of the present.

Where there had been function, there is now dysfunction. The utility poles of what once was useful have been blown down and away with the wind.

Where there had been competence and confidence there is now uncertainty, hesitancy, and incompetence.

The time and funds for maintaining infrastructure are wiped out in the aftermath of cleaning up the mess. Financial viability gives way to financial desperation.

Perhaps worst of all, the knight in shining armor becomes his damsel’s greatest distress…

The bright side:

The Good News is that there is One Who knows all about the storms of life. In fact, His Spirit is a Hurricane Hunter. If we fly with Him, we can pass into the eye of the storm, where there is peace, light and even greater understanding than can be found before the storm.

Love!

Have just returned from our time at the Burzynski Clinic in Houston, TX. It was a very full time there to say the least. We drove, and are exhausted, but on the road got a little more light on a couple of things that I need to blog about in the next few days, just as soon as I take a day or so to suck wind. One post will have to do with the dark side of Hurricane Cancer: The Silent Storm, as seen from the eye of the storm, and the other will be as succinct as possible explanation of what cancer is, how it comes to be, and targeted therapy, the Treatment developed at Burzynski, and practiced there. I want to pass that one by Burzynski to be sure I have it right. Meanwhile the war goes on.

Bless You!

Love

Also see: Heresy In A Nut Shell, (or “Cell” as the case may be
and The Old Creation Witness – The Dark Side