I was feeling kind of wheezy today. I hesitate to mention it because it would be easy to conclude that I am smoking therefore I am wheezy, but I don't think that is the case.

After the balur I was 80 % better... Raina says something was stuck, and today my table was so much blacker than yesterday. Anyway, I will use the syringe to smoke my head and chest tonight and report back.

We are learning a few words in Bahasa...that's what they speak here. Left and right and straight are our most popular words for us because few taxi drivers know where to go.. But it is kind of satisfying when we actually get where we want to go.

A word about the cigarettes... there are about 30 different ones, and They grow the tobacco and roll them at the clinic...each one has a different amino acid or additive...like my favorite, 25...folic acid. Also we have little droppers of what they call nano, and we put a drop before we smoke. I don't like the taste and smoke very little, but it is a direct delivery system for the amino acids and they are hardly adictive. Dr. Gretha told me yesterday she could detox people from heroin in 5 days and I can believe it...

today they made me sing Yesterday by the Beatles during one part... we all sang, and laughed.

In the beginning I thought each treatment would be a chore...but I do like it now.... Except the things we drink...at the end is coffee mixed with a raw egg... that one is tough...

xxxooo

This is me in front of the hotel right after Balur... I still have the stains from the smoke...

and next is the street outside the clinic... and finally, the durian fruit in the market.. the whole place stinks!!!

Today in my treatment I had Reina and Faidja... they are kind of my favorites. During the 2nd round of smoking, Faidja started coughing and choking and she went into the bathroom and almost threw up... I asked if she was sick and Reina sayd that she might have taken some of my free radicals and she had to get them out... everybody felt dizzy today. not me so much...

It must be hard not to take on the sickness of the patients, some days more than others.

My mom is watching MTV... Ke$sha is singing Blah Blah Blah...

I brought a CD I made to the clinic today. We all sang Take a chance on me... ABBA

and A whole new World...It was nice. Adi, one of the young guys that smokes for us sometimes asked of I minded if he came into the room today while he made syringes... He is really funny and asks a lot of questions. It is funny to me when he is in there ... probably because I am nude and soaking in liquid, but I don't care... when they tell me "face up!" and I flip over he always says .."good moving!"

I am making soup and we will eat in tonight... It is a challenge to get food! especially vegetables.

What I wouldn't give for Inaka. and some blue corn chips

It is raining ... thunder. It is the end of the rainy season which is good because there is less typhoid around. yikes... but the balur takes it away anyway.

Thanks to April and Analise who made my sarongs into skirts...! I wear one every day.. it is so hard to put on pants when you are standing in 2 inches of water... the skirts go over the head... It is the simple things that thrill me these days.

I think I needed to get this cancer to persuade me to really change my ways... it makes sense that sometimes you have to be forced. I will surely never go back to my same way of living and thinking...

xxxooo love you all!

Murray....

I met a guy in the clinic .... Murray Clapham. He is a Subud member who has lived here since the 70's but now lives with his wife in Singapore. He is tall and handsome in a Chris Brock way... about 65. He is so nice and friendly, always flagging us a taxi and helping us navigate the city.

He is one of the cases we heard about before we got here... 6 months ago he came to Indonesia to say goodbye to his kids... on a stretcher, very close to dying from advanced prostate cancer. He has been taking these treatments and is basically fine... better than fine. When I see him walking around so vital and happy, it inspires me. I feel pretty great today, I am finding it easier to visualize myself healthy and happy when I feel good... that is the hardest part, staying positive and keeping the doubt away. But all the support from my family and friends if priceless....

so we went to a beach "resort" with Dr. Gretha, Rohanna, a couple of other patients including Wayne from Canada and about 12 people who work in the clinic and at least 20 of their kids.

the kids are so cute and curious... on the 2 hour drive ( we rode in a car alone with rohanna and a driver and everyone else ws on a big bus. ) we stopped for gas and there was a van full of women all wearing white... maybe they were nuns? anyway, I was just standing there while they pulled up and I was aware they were all staring at me.. then the were all laughing! When I got out my camera and they seemed delighted and started posing.

the beach was very beautiful and the cottages were ... rustic. I never saw another white person.

We went to lunch and they have cats everywhere, no dogs...

The beach was full of little shacks that sell stuff, and people and jetskiis and the water was so warm and lovely, the waves seemed to go right through me, even the ones that look like they will take you out are so gentle.

I enjoyed the sunset with some of balur people... Adi and Waldi are especially cute and sweet...

that prominent lump in the horizon is Krakatoa... the volcano. OK?

We danced around the pool after dinner and everyone laughed and sang and had a good time. No Balur yesterday or today and I actually can't wait to get in there tomorrow. We got home around 5 and were crabby and starving. I am trying to get a juicer so I can get some nutrients... maybe tomorrow. Gretha is amazing, she never stops talking about particles and atoms and amino acids. Apparently nicotine has gold and water and your body has water and mercury... and the gold in the tobacco trades places with the mercury in your body. I know... but I had a really weird itchy thing on my palm and I pushed smoke and it disappeared that instant.

xxxooo

Today i was actually excited to get my treatment... After 2 days off I craved it.

I had Joom as usual (the one in the red t-shirt) but I had a new Balurist.. (can't remember her name ) but by now everyone knows each other. It was really different, She spoke a little English. yesterday Dr. Gretha told me you can kind of align yourself with the balurist and share the energy. At one point in the beginning she said something serious in Indonesian and I think she was telling me to get my mind to focus. It was helpful weather or not she actually said that.

I ordered the cancer to get out and visualized being happy and healthy in the future.

I felt so good today, almost euphoric sometimes. The treatment was really pleasent for the most part. Sometimes a guy will squat just outside the room and smoke syringes for us...( the guy in the yellow shirt smoked for me today) It is hard to smoke sometimes when you are lying on the table dripping wet and they are smoking you. When it was over I couldn't help dancing to Michael Jackson while I got dressed.

We found a restaurant finally that had decent food... it is close to the hotel behind a spa and they have food for traveling nature people ... I think. They played the B-52's and Led Zepplin. It was kind of like heaven.

then we took a tiny cab that is like a lawnmower (see photo) to the store called D'Best and I finally got a juicer...We are full of nutrients!

we have been here for a week and it kind of feels like 3. All the skin on my hands is peeling off and they feel rough like sandpaper. Also I am reading Suzanne Sommers book, Knockout. It is about curing cancer without surgery and chemotherapy. It is pretty cheezy but also It makes me so happy I am here...

the other photos are of our clinic friends... It is a joy to see their shining faces.

xxoo

what it looks like

here is what my first table looks like...I take a photo every day of my table after the treatment... these are my filthy feet...

and this is the lovely Faidja... she sweats and spits on the floor while she is smoking me!

I will also mention that the floor is always wet, there is no toilet paper, but there is a little sprayer like the kind you pull out of the side of a faucet in a kitchen. and I have not seen a rat but I did see a huge cockroach. Honestly I didn't bother me.

thanks for all the love everyone! I can feel it.

xxoo

TGI Saturday

It is Saturday... sweet relief, 5 treatments are done. Tomorr0w we are off! I got a lot out. My mom and I both have really angry rashes on our backs, we can't figure out if they are toxins coming out or they are possibly rubbing our skin off. They don't get many whiteys there.

Dr. Gretha treats a lot of kids for autism, some are found abandoned on the streets... they are treated free of charge unless the parents have money. So sometimes added to the sounds of running water, chattering of 20 people, slapping, motorcycles form the street you also hear laughing or crying kids. Which is sometimes nice and sometimes hard to hear.. Also there is sometimes music as I have already mentioned. Today the one that stuck is From This Moment..

I don't know who sings it... maybe Faith Hill? and then opera. It is such a big crazy place...You really have to just surrender and you never know what is going to happen next.

I have a feeling that I didn't really feel good for a long time and that I am about to see in hind sight I was feeling worse than I thought. I felt so great when I woke up today, almost euphoric.

I expect I will feel really good soon.

Tonight we are going to do Latihan with Ibu Rahayiu. ( we belong to a spiritual brotherhood...my parents joined 44 years ago and the center of it is here in Indonesia. Ibu is the daughter of the founder Bapak and the latihan is the excersize...it is for the soul! and so amazing that we are here able to do these things together.)

It is my nap time... mom already went down. And tomorrow we are supposed to go to the beach for the night with all the people who work in the clinic and party... Can't hardly wait to see what happens myself, I can imagine how you feel.

xxxooo

these are kind of the befores

these are when we were just starting and we didn't know what was going to happen.

My mom in the Singapore airport buying a camera and me in the lounge eating kale.

Today was the 3rd treatment. much more of the same but different. When we got there Whitney Houston's version of the Dolly Parton classic

"I will always love you" was playing and so that has been in my head all day. I am still sore from yesterday but since Faidja and Joom speak only 7 words of English ( face up! face down!, sorry, enema and hot!) I was on my own. I kind of like it because it keeps me from complaining. I will have some more photos soon...

the ants here are super tiny and extra fast. my feet are black. I learned how to smoke myself with the syringe and it tastes worse than smoking it the regular way. I will report that I used to have a little bump under my chin... and now I can't find it, also the hard spots in both my breasts from surgery 2 years ago are already totally soft. you would have had to feel them last week in order to feel the difference but you'll just have to take my word for it.

thanks for all the lovely support. I love it and need it! at all times except when I am on the table...then it is all me.

xxoo

day 2

yesterday was day 2

I smell like coffee. I just did my morning rubdown with strong coffee and you can't really wash it off. I am still kind of in shock because of what happened yesterday. I found out how easy they were on me that first day. During my treatment at one point Rohanna and Dr. Grettha came in and Rohanna had a familiar look on her face. I asked her if I should be terrified , she said no but I was so sure something was coming. Dr. Grettha is a pretty small wire-y about 70 years old and she has a very strong presence and sense of humor. She smoked my head with the hollow bone and there were 3 women blowing smoke into the syringes and smoking my body...Rohanna was making syringes too.

then a whirlwind started happening, it was like a tornado. Remember yesterday when they hit me? Well that was a totally different kind of hitting than what was now going on. Dr Grettha got up on the wet filthy table and hit me so hard I could hardly believe it. in a rhythm 1,2 - 1,2 - 1,2...

I though about the scene in that movie where the bullies hit the hero with a cricket bat. I was laughing, Dr. was telling the girls where to blow the smoke, 3 of them. and my head was spinning. sometimes I would see Rohanna out of the corner of my eye and her face was so serious. Dr. was striking me, I was face down and I didn't want to yell but I had to ,... I think it was in the shape of OWW.

It was like they were chasing something in my body, they were frantically rubbing different things on me, ... she said "Mercury OUT!" I said it too and Rohanna reminded me to summon all my powers and command the cancer out. I want to tell you that I though of all your love and support but during the hitting there was only me. the pain was so sharp and it burned and then she had me join her and hit myself... this is an open hand, slap with the heal of the palm having the most force.

Now face up... We chased that Cancer all over, I was laughing and screaming ... I had to take a break. I asked Dr, if she was maybe tired and needed a break , and we all laughed. She said "do I look tired to you?" she was in fact sweating and smiling crouched over wet naked me like a cat and she did not look tired at all. so We continued, I think this lasted for hours but probably only 20 minutes.

When it was over, I felt like my whole head was going to rain, I didn't cry but I didn't try not to.

I am exhausted just trying to write about it. After was like a dream and now I am sore all over.

A bunch of other stuff happened, I got a rice steamer! Watched American Idol... life goes on...

they call my mom "mommy" at the clinic and yesterday they asked her why she came with me...

she said because she didn't want me to be all alone. How Can you beat that?

April 20

I had my first treatment today. It was more intense and I am just sitting here shaking my head trying to find words to describe it. I think I will try and describe what happened.

We got to the clinic at 3... Had a short meeting with Dr. Grettha, She made a very brief attempt to explain the method and the reasons behind it. I didn't really understand a lot. Something about Murcury being the cause of all toxins and the way to get it out is by using tobacco that has been treated with nano particles that grab onto it and force it out. then I was separated from my mom and taken into a room with a copper table, sheet metal walls and ceiling and a hospital type curtain. ..

I took off all my clothes except underwear, My 2 nurses did not speak English, so there was some Indonesian spoken and a lot of sign language. They laughed a lot, and so did I. First I drank something that was not too bad, then water then given a little eyecup full of liquid called "eyewash 1" I put it up to one eye and opened and closed while Fajuada blew smoke through a tube in my ear, and up my nose... then the other side. Then pour the rest of the eyewash on my head...

not so bad. I ws just trying not to think about it too much and really surrender. Next was a rubdown with white wet scrubby stuff, front and back, now I was wet and lying on this wet table. then they smoked me with big syringes (no needle) all over my whole body and head. probably 70x ... they would smoke, blow into the syringe while pulling the plunger and put the tip on my skin and push it in... It was so crazy and fast, at this point, Adi, a young man was standing there quickly filling syringes and the whole thing took around 5 minutes.

I can't say what I was thinking, everything went so fast and they were having me roll over and I couldn't understand anything... then more rubdown, covered with hot wet cloths and then a wrinkly metal blanket with just my nose out and left for 5 minutes...

then they came back...and I had to smoke a cigarette ( all of the cigarettes have special filters that have the stuff that take out the toxins ) I feel dizzy and nauseous ...Next Fajuada and Joom rubbed me down with something else and hit me all over, HARD. ..face the wall and Enema. My mind was kind of reeling, the rest was just more of the same, rub me down, hit me , smoke me, enema, wet and covered with all kinds of stuff, drink something else tastes bad... finally coffee rubdown and then I could shower. And it feels so good, but I also feel quite nauseous and I can't believe what has just happened ... then Dr. Grettha used a hollow bone to smoke my head and up my nose and that was pretty painful ...and that is it. the people are so nice and friendly, we laughed and I am glad it is over.

they gave us several types of cigarettes to take home and we are prescribed which ones to smoke and when, plus 2 things to drink 2 things to enema and 2 things to rub ourselves down with before we return each day. We both still feel pretty strange, and can taste the tobacco in the back of out throats when we take the taxi home past all the crazzzy Indonesian streets ... Mom is passed out watching tv and I am so ready to sleep but the coffee and cigarettes make me jittery. I am told it will go very fast and that it will be very easy to get the murcury and the cancer out.

I can imagine how insane that sounds, but I am here doing it and it seems perfect somehow. I can't comment on it or think about it too much, and when I got home, I put on the ipod and lay on my bed, It played Do it again by Steeley Dan and that is what I am going to do...

April 19

... After a pretty easy 26 hour journey, My mom and I are happily in Jakarta. I forgot to imagine what this country would look like and I was kind of stunned. It is crowded with cars and motorcycles, we passed a long street maybe 3 blocks with dozens of venders selling all kinds of animals, birds, bunnies, chickens, cats... among other crazy things. We are pretty wiped out, just caught up with our friend Rohanna who is almost finished with her treatments...

I start hardcore tomorrow, I have a pretty good idea of what to expect but I think I will wait to describe anything until it actually happens. For now, I am excited and trying not to think about drinking raw eggs.

Definately need some time to acclimate, phones will be hooked up soon, Until then, emails are the best.

Signing off... day one.

xo