Helena Trent

In Darkness Born the Light - My Journey From Mutation To Transformation

A New Month, A New Year, A New Life

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Happy June everyone!!! 😍 I made it to a new month!!! And it’s not just any month, it’s my birthday month. I have been recovering nicely from the hospital stay and managing both headaches and vomiting nicely with occasional medication. I am also eating well and sleep well which makes all the difference. I am happy and look forward to my new treatment and a new year ahead of me.

My tai chi friends are planning a drive by birthday party for me on 6/9. Details are coming. I look forward to seeing you in person and spend a little time together. We will have the green light from COVID by then.

Since this is a special birthday for me (aren’t all birthdays special?), I ask you not to get me any “stuff”. At this stage in my life, I don’t want to collect stuff, but want to get rid of stuff. I spend the limited amount of energy I have to organize and donate what I have away to charities. For one, I don’t know how this cancer turns out, I don’t want Brett to handle my stuff after I pass away. Even if I live, I know I am not going back to my old life. Everything I own, I look at them with fond memories of the past. Everything represents a moment in time, a piece of me in the past. I am ready to let go. So, please do me a favor, don’t give me any more work! 😂

If you feel the need to get me a birthday gift, here are three choices:

  1. Come to the party as you are, your smiles and warmth are the best gift I will cherish!
  2. If you feel the need to get me something, Whole Foods gifts cards are welcome. I shop there for my groceries. Your gift would help me eat better and be healthier!
  3. Gift me 2 hours of your time to help me organize and donate my stuff to charity. It will give us a chance to spend some time together in person and help put my unneeded stuff to the world to do some good.

Thank you for your well wishes and prayers as always!!! I feel so loved and supported by the world no matter what I am going through in life. You all make me feel so special in this world. 🙏💞❣️😻

A Short Hospital Stay

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I just spent the last couple of nights in the hospital, getting discharged today. I do feel a lot better than when I went in. When I told my oncologist about my headaches and vomiting, he had me checked into the ER hours later. Given my history, he was worried something serious might be going on. The ER did a CT scan of my head, couldn’t find anything really wrong so they admitted me into the hospital for further testing. It was more of an observation hospital stay than a treatment stay. Anyway, they performed a brain MRI and a full CT scan of my whole body. The brain MRI turned out to be clear. My headaches are vomiting must be from the leftover side effects of the brain radiation. An oncology nurse friend told me it’s like a brain injury, it takes a long time to heal completely. Meanwhile, I have to take some medicine to control the symptoms. The CT scan did not turn out well which I expected. Progression of the lung and liver tumors are both shown. Tarceva, the gene inhibitor drug I had high hopes for is not working. It’s not helping me at all, so there is no point in taking it any longer.

My oncologist wants me to try immunotherapy even though it has not been proven for my type of cancer. Immunotherapy is the newest way to treat cancer. A Nobel Prize was won for that a couple of years ago. Unlike chemo, it doesn’t try to use drugs to kill the cancer. Instead, it boosts the immune system so that the immune system kills the cancer. Patients that respond to the treatment responds very well and have long last effect. He has not treated anyone with gene mutation with this method because only 5% of cancer patients have gene mutation. I decided to give it a try. I have nothing to lose at this point. If nothing else, I donate this body to science while I am still alive. Maybe I get better from it. Maybe someone else will learn something from my experience. Either way, the side effects sounded manageable. I will likely start the treatment next week. It’s one treatment every 3 weeks. I agreed to try it for 3 months and see what happens.

Cancer Won This Round

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Once again, cancer has forced me out of fasting early. Sigh. My body simply doesn’t have enough reserve to fight a long battle. I did fine the first week or so. Then it started making me throw up… even under fasting! I had nothing but bile to throw up of course. Then I had the brilliant idea of doing a one-day true water fasting without the support of bone broth. That did it. I threw up big time, all the water I drank. Then I was so weak I couldn’t even stand up. My heart rate jumped to the 80’s. (Normally only 60 for me.) My heart was racing like a rabbit trying to jump out of my chest. My blood oxygen dropped to the 80’s (healthy range is 95+). I was so light headed I thought I could pass out anytime.

As soon as I got back on bone broth, everything got a little better, but I couldn’t recover from that 1 day water fasting. I know it’s my brain tumors because I have a massive constant headache despite the water fasting. It’s giving command for the body to threw up.

Not all is lost despite my defeat, I decided to come out of it because my body was in serious trouble. I realized I am not going to get rid of cancer in one round anyway. I did learn what I needed to learn from this lesson. I took my time early in the fasting when I had energy to research a lot about fasting and cancer. It turns out, the most important and dangerous part is not the fasting itself, but the “refeeding” process coming out of fasting. That’s the mistake I made last time. When I got into fasting, my body entered into ketosis, and it’s important that I keep it in ketosis. Instead, I didn’t know any better, eating things like rice porridge, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, etc. because those were food I thought was easy to digest. The cancer cells fed on carbs like crazy and put my body in worse shape then before. No wonder it only took a few days for me to be back in square one!

Needless to say I know better this time! It’s a miracle my body survived that mistake. Now I have a new diet I am sticking to and stop feeding cancer cells even when I eat. I will also put in a regular water fasting routing after I regained my strength so I don’t weaken my body through the process.

As far as the vomiting goes, I also figured out ginger blocks the vomit receptor in the brain. As long as I eat/drink enough ginger in my meals, I don’t throw up. The headache is something else I still need to figure out.

Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes!