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. 🙏💞❣️😻

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!

I felt like back to square one again… sigh. As I got off my fasting and got back to regular eating, at first it was energetic, especially the first few days even with the occasional minor indigestion initially. As the days went by, I could feel my insides getting more and more congested. I was trying to have one last weekend of nice meals especially because it’s Mother’s Day weekend, then go back into a few days of water fasting to clear the system. Well, like deja vu, my body decided no more meals and proceeded to vomiting out of the blue AGAIN as we were cooking dinner on Saturday night! So… water fasting it is. I was totally pissed this time!!! 😡 I know it’s my brain tumors that have been messing with me. They are supposed to be all gone after the 2 week whole brain radiation, but I know they are not because I got headaches at different regions of my brain. This happened last time too, a few days of that and then I threw up. It turns out nausea and vomiting are typical symptoms of brain tumors. It did stop after the last water fasting and I think it had to do with the cancer activities slowing way down with water fasting. With eating on a regular basis again, cancer cells always outgrow healthy cells.

I am back on water fasting and this time I am going for the 21-day cell cycle like I had planned last time. I thought I had a reset, but it was very brief. This time, one of us will die, if it’s me, so be it, but I won’t let cancer send me on a yo-yo back and forth every other week. The good thing is I am stronger going into it this time and I know what to expect at least the first 7 days. I am not as apprehensive about the process. I believe my body still has a fighting chance and it can come back. Like my bursitis on my hip, it was painful for weeks, but once I got to physical therapy, it only took 2 sessions for me to work out the problem and it took a totally of 4 days for it to recovery completely. It just needs the right support. I really believe my cancer is the same way, but I haven’t quite figure out the right combinations yet. As long as I am alive and breathing, I still have a chance.

Over the weekend as I cooked our planned meals for the family without eating it, I thought it was such irony that they are enjoying my Mother’s Day dinner. It’s unthinkable for Chinese to choose not to eat. I remember there was a time in my life I would get hangry because a meal was late… lol! I think it’s in my genes. There must be hundreds and thousands of hungry ghosts in my ancestral line. Not a surprise considering Chinese history was full of famines mostly due to corrupt governments (somethings just don’t change I suppose 😜) My parents were the last generation to experience famine during the cultural revolution. I was born during the cultural revolution, naturally I am reluctant to do this.

I decided to dedicate this 21-Day water fasting to the entire ancestral line of hungry ghosts, may my fasting end the entirely family line of suffering related to food and may this body be made anew to serve the generations to come! It’s also fitting this cancer is a gene mutation, let it all end here.