Avnish (my spiritual sherpa) has taught me an awful lot about visualization and managing my health by thinking positively about what I want to see happen to myself.
So the other day I had a thought. Since my biggest challenge right now, and frankly the one issue that will be my demise, if not controlled sooner than later, is my pancreas. As Dr. R said, ‘if anything is going to get you it will be the pancreas.’
So I figure I am going to change my visualization practice. I’m going to focus all my attention on the tumour that is covering the two ducts that reside at the head of my pancreas. This is a full on focus. And I plan on being relentless.
In order to really be able to get a complete picture I asked my medical sherpa Houman to guide me in a couple of ways. First of all I needed to understand where my pancreas was in relation to the rest of my body and organs. Houman did two things, first he described the location of the pancreas as about two inches down from the base of my sternum, and secondly he sent me this quick image so I could have a basic visual and understanding of size and scale of the tumour.
This has been really helpful.
He even covered my nipples so I wouldn’t be distracted.
The next thing he did for me was to get recent scans and place them over the same image. As you will see there are two different perspectives. One that is straight on, and the other is a slice looking at it through the top.
While it is difficult as a layperson to fully understand these images I had the luxury of chatting extensively with Houman to better understand. As a note the arrows point to the outer area of the tumour but as Houman mentioned these also include inflammation etc so they look a bit larger than what his blue dot tells us.
And for quick reference the white lines are the stents in the pancreatic and bile ducts. On the top down image the circle is a slice of the stent and the black ball is air in the stent.
What has happened for me is that I can now sit or lie quietly and visualize where the tumour is in my body.
And it’s working.
I have even gotten between the tumour and the pancreas, almost like the tumour was a tent over the pancreas. I was lasering it till all of a sudden the whole thing crashed down and I had to escape, kinda like Antman running away from an oncoming pancake.
Sometimes the visualization happens, sometimes it doesn’t.
What I am having a hard time doing is figuring out how to approach the tumour. Do I use lasers, or flames, do I send bright light, use a scythe or ax, or do I use something like a firehose. I’ve tried them all and my mind keeps creating new ways to try and reduce the tumour. Avnish and I went back and forth, we agreed firehose seems appropriate, least aggressive but still affective.
But for some reason every time I arrive at the tumour I seem to use a different approach. Not sure if this is my mind saying to try all techniques or if I just need to focus. Houman figures it’s because we are using so many different treatments medically that I am just using the same approach mentally. Kinda like ‘hey tumour, you thought we were just throwing chemo at you, well here’s a double dose of immunotherapy, and a laser and a firehose.’
As I type this I realize how crazy this will sound to most of you. And that is ok, it really is.
But I believe in it quite strongly and am pretty sure my mind has gotten me to where I am today. Actually I know my approach is working.
I’m doing whatever I can to keep the immunotherapy going. The smaller I can keep this darn tumour the better off I will be. The pancreas knows it, I know it, and the tumour is starting to get the hint.
I’m going to keep channeling my inner ant man and I’m gonna do it with comedy just like Paul Rudd, he makes me laugh.