Metastasis

I personally really dislike the phrases "a long battle" or "bravely fighting" with regard to cancer. For me cancer is not a war. I've made a conscious decision to work with my body, not against it. I did that for long enough prior to diagnosis. 

By the time a tumour is approx 2mm it will have it's own blood supply. This process of developing new blood vessels is called angiogenesis. From this point tumour cells can migrate into the blood system. When diagnosed, many people will already have circulating tumour cells (CTC's) in their blood, particularly if cancer has been found in the lymph nodes, as it was in my case. I have regular, specific testing done with Nicola Hembry to measure and monitor this 'residual disease'. I have low levels of CTC's and circulating cancer stem cells, which were most likely shed from my primary tumour prior to surgery. When the body remains acidic, it becomes viable for these cells to take hold in distant organs or bones. This is called metastasis. This was something that I didn't understand at diagnosis. I couldn't even say the word metastasis. I had to learn a whole new language, and quickly. 

Cancer cells are sneaky. They can 'hide' from our body's immune system, evading macrophages (the Pac-men of the immune system) and Natural Killer cells whilst continuing to grow undetected. They produce lactic acid as a by-product of metabolism, which adds to the body's acidic load. And they are constantly evolving and mutating, meaning that residual disease in the body may have different characteristics from the primary tumour. My original diagnosis was of oestrogen positive cancer, but my circulating cells are no longer hormone positive. If you think about this information in relation to conventional drugs, residual cancer is not necessarily well targeted, and chemotherapy is not great at destroying stem cells. 

Many people think that their cancer 'came back' or that they were unlucky to 'get it again', whereas in fact it was probably always there. Perhaps it was laying dormant until conditions were right to continue growing, or maybe it had been slowly advancing, undetected over time. But it's important to know that a large number of people have kept metastasised cancer at bay for years by making long-term lifestyle changes. Juicing, eating an alkalising, organic, mostly plant-based diet, taking personalised supplementation, healing emotionally and using visualisation techniques are all important ways to maintain health.

My level of cancer is stable and at the mid-range of 'safe' (3.8 cells per 7.5 ml of blood). In allopathic terms I would be deemed as having No Evidence of Disease, as this amount of cancer is too microscopic to be picked up on scans. However these cells can become active at any time, depending on my internal environment. That's why I continue to work hard at staying alkaline, hydrated and oxygenated. I want to keep my internal terrain as hostile as possible for those sneaky cells.