About Margreet... #14

the letters

 

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: about Margreet...
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:13:16 +0200
From: Bob Ocegueda <bob@oceguedaproductions.com>
To: Bob Ocegueda <bob@oceguedaproductions.com>
CC: Margreet <margreet@oceguedaproductions.com>

 
Dear Family and Friends,

Nothing but good news! ... and a little altercation.

First, we went to see her oncologist last week.  Margreet has been sweating this meeting for a long time.  Seems like the only thing this guy was interested in is to make her comfortable for the last few months that she has to live.  Didn't want to give her radiation therapy because of the possible negative side effects.  She may have not been able to enjoy her grand children from being too sick after the therapy.  Chemotherapy was also definitely out because she would be more sick from it than the possible benefit of a little longer life.

So, she's been very afraid of him.  Gets all kinds of stress related reactions every time an appointment get close at hand.

Well, this time we went in and he agreed with every request we had and was a most pleasant kind of guy. 

What we wanted was to reduce the amount of dexametason that she's been getting to reduce the swelling of the area around the tumor.  It is very effective in doing that, and Margreet responds very well to it.  So, it's been a life saver for her.  However  (there's ALWAYS a 'however', 'aint it?)  This drug has some very nasty side effects.  Among them is gaining a lot of weight, becoming emotionally uncontrollable, loss of calcium in her bones, thinning of the skin, retention of water all over her body and who know what else.

What she wants the most is to be able to gain control of her emotions, so wants to reduce the intake of the thing.  Last time we were with the doctor he prescribed 8 milligrams per day.  He wasn't worried about the long term effects of the drug since she didn't have "a long time" to worry about, so we wanted to take it down.  When she asked him, he readilly agreed and gave her a schedule to reduce it down to 1.5 mg per day in about 2 months.  It needs to be reduced slowly because the drug replaces the use of some adrenal gland normally used by our body, and that gland needs to get the idea that it's being called back into action.  If it's reduce too abruptly the body can go into shock and have even worse results.  So, anyway, as he's prescribing some medicines to tackle sleeplessness and some excruciating pain in her knees that comes up from time to time, which may or may not be related to this drug, Marcia would ask about prescribing other types or complementary drugs that would make them less stressful to Margreet and he would readily agree to her suggestions.

First, we are very 'lucky' that she's here.  Without her we would have accepted his prescriptions without knowing of any of the negative side effects of what he was prescribing and Second, he accepted her suggestions without getting defensive about his decision!

So, all in all, it went VERY well.

As we were driving away from the hospital Margreet told us that she'd been doing a guided Angel meditation from one of the CDs a friend gave her.  All morning she'd been visualizing a bunch of Angels standing around the doctor giving him light.

So, is that what make the difference this time?  Shoot!  We didn't have a "double blind" control test, so we'll have to go with out intuition.

So, is the chaparral tea making her not get worse, as expected?  Shoot!  Again, no control test.  It just happens to not follow the prescribed statistical pattern.  Is it a combination of her mental attitude and the tea?  The additional prayers and good energy sent by you?  I don't know, all we can be sure of is that FOR NOW things are  working OK... so keep it up!

Meanwhile, the slight altercation... while she was practicing with her new scooter a tree decided to get in front of her and she crashed into it.  She ended up with a few scratches and bruces, and a better perspective on the possibilities of what could happen if she's not careful.  We got a new training program now.  The problem seems to be that the controls are backwards from the ones she's used to in the bicycle.  In order to stop, you need to let go of the handle, as opposed to gripping the handle to apply the brakes in a the bicycle.  So... we'll be doing a slow training program to make sure she gets it right next time.

Meanwhile she's resting and recuperating.  She thinks it would be funny if she'd survive a brain tumor only to find her demise in an accident with a scooter.

Sure.

C-ya!

Bob


 

 

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