Notes from Laura on Her Journey
Thoughts, expressions, and experiences from Laura as she lives well:January 2007 - February 2007
For those of you that are returning, welcome back!
For those visiting for the first time, we're glad you're here!
- Please read the Live Well section further below and then come back to this section to read the notes from Laura.
- You may want to explore other blog topics and see the photos that are even further down the page.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the blog for instructions for how to post comments...
To read Laura's most recent comments, click on the "# comments" link (e.g., "7 comments") directly below
posted by Anonymous at 1/02/2007 10:23:00 PM
11 Comments:
NOTES FROM LAURA – TO THE BLOG – PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE – for Laura only. - January 4, 2007
Hello All;
It has been a wonderful and fulfilling holiday time, with many connection opportunities, delightful company and sweet visits -- then along came New Years. Tempting champagne, chocolate lava cake and ice cream. Sounds good eh? But my liver was not so thrilled with that formula. I was sound asleep at 9:30PM. But not sleeping so well.
As a matter of fact the liver is not doing so well. The number and size of lesions in the liver are going in the wrong direction. It’s time to explore other treatment possibilities – so even more research begins. If anyone has any suggestions for new treatment please let me know.
I am off to the clinic in the morning. It is time to design and process a new treatment program. And to explore other clinics. So this week and next will be about research and decision making.
And then January 16th will be an exciting one day Bigger Game workshop for the Otters Leadership group, and starting on January 17th retreat #3 begins with my cool co-active co-leader Karen. What a treat. It is hard to imagine a more exciting and fulfilling time.
Can you tell what an interesting time this is? Exciting. Thrilling. Scary. And as we speak the wind is howling, the rain is slanting and the apple tree is still broken in half. Welcome to 2007!!
Thanks for coming.
Love, Laura
THIS LOCATION IS RESERVED FOR Notes from Laura on Her Journey PLEASE DO TALK WITH HER BY POSTING YOUR COMMENTS TO ‘PERSONAL NOTES TO LAURA.’
Thursday, January 04, 2007 10:45:00 PM
NOTES FROM LAURA – TO THE BLOG –
PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE – for Laura only. January 14, 2007
Hello All;
I am still recovering from Mexico, the latest PET/CT scan and the holidays. This has been a hard week, as anemia has been running the show. And low hemoglobin scores have made for a breathless and fatiguing time. Not to mention that I have had three shake and bakes this week, which has reduced my energy, my breath and my health. I have barely had the energy to come to the phone or think through various life decisions.
The really good news though is that we have found a Registered Nurse who is very experienced at what we are trying to do here. She arrived for the interview just before the Shake and Bake and turned out to be quite helpful and convinced Judy and I that we just have to have someone who is knowledgeable and able to deal with stressful situations. And, we like her. This also means that Judy gets to have more time off. All of that is a big Yay.
The good news is that what has been causing the shake and bakes is NOT an infection in the drip PIC line. Rather it is the results of a supplement – riboflavin – which tends to open up tumors and help them to soften and dump. Yes, it calls for antibiotics and it causes these challenging reactions but that continues to be the whole point….. to go after the cancer. And now we are going to stop this for a while as I move into the coming week.
On Tuesday I will do a one day Bigger Game workshop and then we start Retreat #3 of the Leadership program on Wednesday – thru Sunday. So no riboflavin – no shake and bakes. Only attending to the prospects of future Leaders, the context of Leadership and the opportunity to keep ‘showing up’ in life, in the world. With a declared stake. An outspoken stand. And, as mentioned by Karen, the enhancement of the capacity to STAY. To declare a stand, and to visibly stand by it through action and words – that is to STAY. Just as I resist the temptation to quite the ‘fight’ so I stand firm, and STAY, with the fight. Please give me your support, your help in the fight.
Finally, I have really come to grips with the fact that I need to engage in meaningful and expansive conversations to help pull me forward into life – into aliveness. Being at Leadership and the Bigger Game is life affirming for me, even though I am quite tired. So thank you for sending me energy, stamina and wisdom.
Be well this week. Be Big. Fight the Fight. And Show UP.
Love, Laura
THIS LOCATION IS RESERVED FOR Notes from Laura on Her Journey PLEASE DO TALK WITH HER BY POSTING YOUR COMMENTS TO ‘PERSONAL NOTES TO LAURA.’
Sunday, January 14, 2007 8:47:00 PM
NOTES FROM LAURA – TO THE BLOG – PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE – for Laura only. January 22, 2007
Hello All;
I had such a valuable, moving and meaningful experience this week. A week of aliveness and evolution and changing the world. And love. I have sooooo much or sooo little to say about that right now.
Because it was one of the best and the hardest weeks of my life. A few weeks ago I was struck with a case of shingles. A very unpleasant experience. Let me tell you. It is quite normal for cancer patients to get shingles because our immune systems are compromised. And then it begins to clear up, slowly, but surely. Aaahhhh. And it did.
And then a new pain began to appear, near the same place but not quite shingles, it is called PHN …. A deep burning, cutting, aching, painful surge that comes unprovoked at least three times a day. So painfull. In the middle of the leadership program. Oh my gawd. I have never been at this level of pain before in my life. Never. I hope that the link below can help you learn about this, cause you’ll eventually want to know. You can even explore the vaccine that’s coming if you get really curious.
Click here: aftershingles.com: comprehensive resource for information about shingles and postherpetic neuralgia
Today this is what is consuming my life, having the gratitude and satiation from this past week, and yet isn’t it funny how pain becomes so large when there is nothing more compelling going on.
Wednesday we are going for a blood transfusion, and then we’ll decide when/If Mexico happens. There ya go folks, a kind of update that doesn’t refer to all the joy and growth, yet couldn’t exist without it.
Love, Laura
THIS LOCATION IS RESERVED FOR Notes from Laura on Her Journey PLEASE DO TALK WITH HER BY POSTING YOUR COMMENTS TO ‘PERSONAL NOTES TO LAURA.’
Monday, January 22, 2007 5:13:00 PM
NOTES FROM LAURA – TO THE BLOG – PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE – for Laura only. January 28, 2007
Hello All;
The week has continued to be about pain, looking how to live with it and manage it. Tomorrow we are going to visit with a pain specialist doctor, so then I'll be an expert.
Tuesday I meet with Joseph to plan our strategy, Mexico or no. Or what?
It has been hard to stay warm here... it has been cold for this part of California and we are not used to it.
It has been embarassing to see how irritable I become around the pain... not just irritable--- grouchy, mean, impatient, rude and just pissed off. Really, it is curious making. I can have those feelings, but still, it is worthy of examination. It makes everything harder to do or accomplish.
Typing seems to aggravate the pain so I am going to cut this short tonight - and thank you for coming, please keep coming even if I don't type... I need your engagement and your distraction and your pain erasing. And your knowing that this too will pass. I especially need you to know this is what happens in the fight.
Love to you all,
Laura
THIS LOCATION IS RESERVED FOR Notes from Laura on Her Journey PLEASE DO TALK WITH HER BY POSTING YOUR COMMENTS TO ‘PERSONAL NOTES TO LAURA.’
Sunday, January 28, 2007 9:23:00 PM
Laura and Judy left this morning for Mexico treatments. Laura didn't get the chance to post to the blog so I'm posting an intention that I hope you'll join me in envisioning throughout the next 10 days.
Thanks and love, Isha
Together we set the intention of Laura returning home from Mexico in good health and well-being.
Together we encircle Laura in a sphere of nourishing light that provides her with all she needs for healing.
Together we witness Laura absorbing this light and we witness her healing taking place.
So Be It!
Thursday, February 08, 2007 11:27:00 AM
NOTES FROM LAURA – TO THE BLOG – PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE – for Laura only.
Hello All;
Here I am from the Clinic in Mexico, over a week since I left California.
It has been quite the busy time for me down here – but the real landmark was being able to get my wireless internet laptop working on my computer, in my room. Yipee. At least that way I can write to you a little bit at a time. And truth be told, I have been too busy, or my hands have been shaking too hard or I’ve been too tired or I have just not been up to any work on my laptop -- so you can guess how it has been dealing with the computer in the dinning room.
Even now I don’t have the energy I would want to have, so I am going to keep this relatively short for now, and write a longer blog posting later.
Busy you say? Busy with what. Well if you really want to know, I need to have four enemas each day. It turns out the build up in my intestines (constipation) is one of the things that has caused an ammonia buildup, which causes the shaking in my hands. But FOUR! I can do it, I have to do it, but I certainly get to complain about it. Which I am doing here …. so commiserate or smile.
Also I have 3 additional yet different kinds of detoxification sessions each day. Aaaacccch. More and more to do. And Monday thru Friday I go to radiation and I have daily IV chelations, and I course I have meetings with the doctors. Oh, and I need to be in the dinning room at the right time or I miss out, all though truth be told, with my big belly I’m not doing much eating, although I am beginning to enjoy gathering with fellow patients. Oh, and then there are the salt and soda baths every night, and important, very important form of detoxification.
Last Saturday and this Monday I have had a needle injected in my belly for the purpose of removing the accumulation of fluids that came out of my organs, mainly proteins. Up to three liters came out on Saturday’s withdrawal. Monday we could only get a liter and a half yet my belly didn’t look or feel like anything was different in either case. We did do a follow up injection of some medicines and chemo into my abdomen after Saturday’s withdrawal. And we’ll be doing more withdrawals as time goes by. Truth be told it is hard to sleep with such a large belly, caused by this ascites and it can make breathing hard too.
Here is a link if you want to know more about Ascites.
Click here: Ascites - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the meantime we are still trying to reduce the pain from the Post Hepatic Neuralgia. Through a nerve block. Neither of these conditions have any relationship to cancer, but they are what shows up as my primary focus day to day.
In the Cancer arena I have had 5 days of low grade radiation, and I have had two vaccines injected, as well as some chemo, and other attention is paid to the cancer, so things are going on as they should be.
My mood is fine, (even though both Leslie and then later Judy) left. They are better serving the support for me, by being at home. The nurses here are great and I have made some good friends among the patients. So the family support has been most appreciated and now it evolves to look a new way. Having my focus being on Ascites and Post Hepatic Neuralgia (rather than on Cancer) has probably been a good thing. You know, its sorta like . . . oh yeah and then what about the cancer? Anyway, I feel I am in good hands down here, and that’s a good thing -- and I have been surrounded by love and support from Judy and Leslie and feel that even more from a distance.
And then I have been soooooo surrounded by support from you. The emails and the blog postings from you have been exactly what I need and I thank you so much. And there will more postings from me, promise.
One final note, for now: It is my plan to be here as long as needed, I want to kick Cancer’s Butt while here – although I will for sure return to California for R#4 of the Otters, which is the last week of March. We need to soften up the liver tumors and get them out of my body through the various detoxification methods and- yay - I can feel the softening of the tumors that are filling my belly area and have experienced some eliminations already, a difficult one through a ‘shake and bake’ and more simply in my baths and enemas. So keep that white light and those prayers coming, knowing that I am doing my part, as best I can … And I know you are doing yours -- I especially feel those 12:00 intentions, and allow them to flow over me.
With much love and appreciation for your time AND your intentions...
Love, Laura
THIS LOCATION IS RESERVED FOR Notes from Laura on Her Journey PLEASE DO TALK WITH HER BY POSTING YOUR COMMENTS TO ‘PERSONAL NOTES TO LAURA.’
Saturday, February 17, 2007 2:33:00 PM
Dearest Friends of Laura,
Laura's conditioned has worsened and we believe that she's in liver failure. We're flying her home on an air ambulance today (Wed. Feb 28) from Mexico.
Please hold thoughts of peace and ease in your heart for her.
We'll keep you posted here on the blog and we'll make every effort to make a daily entry to keep you informed. We respectfully ask that you not try to phone the house or send email to Laura's email address but instead use the blog for any messages to her.
Love,
Isha
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 8:22:00 AM
Dearest Dear Friends,
Our beloved Laura left this life today on her plane ride home with Judy by her side.
This is all I seem to be able to say at this overwhelmingly sad moment.
We welcome your continued postings on this blog as we've all become such a family together through Laura's journey.
We'll let you know about a memorial service sometime after this next week passes.
Love,
Isha
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 2:35:00 PM
I will light a candle for you Laura as you have been such a light for so many years for me. May you know how deeply you have been loved.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 8:57:00 PM
Thank you Laura for your special gifts. You made a huge impact in my own personal life and the lives of people all over the world. This spirit of you Laura will truly be honored for all time, all space and into eternity. After putting these words to my feeling, I realized how important it is to fully express ourselves to the people we care about today, now, when they are alive. I actually failed in telling you this when you were here in our presence. In honor of you Laura, I am dedicating a “TRIBUTE TO A LIVING SOUL”. Laura, you taught me to fully express myself, without fear, no matter what, to others I care about. I miss you already and have great admiration for who you are. With my love and deepest respect, Barry Bettman
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 10:33:00 PM
Dear Laura,
You are very special. I am indeed so grateful that I have met you and you have brought coactivity into my life. Coactivity really works. You indeed have lived well and your spirit lives on.. informing us and guiding us.
Anna Leong, Singapore
Thursday, March 01, 2007 9:01:00 PM
<< Home