Thanks Brandon. I'm looking forward to your blog posts!

I have to do some soul searching to do regarding getting back on the ketogenic diet. I'm going to write a blog about this soon, but I encountered a very paradoxical situation when I finally conceded the necessity of taking the radiation and chemotherapy. For almost two months between when I realized the cancer had come back, and when I first heard about the ketogenic diet, I tried to follow it (cancer back in August, discovered Ketogenic diet in September, began radiation and chemo in November). I found the research of Dr. Otto Warburg very persuasive and it just made perfect sense to limit glucose intake to the absolute minimum to starve the cancer. Fasting was an integral part of this.

Despite my best efforts, the tumor at the base of my tongue grew 5 times bigger in the 4 months between the confirmation of my diagnosis and the beginning of radiation and chemo (August 2017 to November). I could barely talk or swallow and my weight had fallen to 135lbs (I'm 6'1"). It is hard not to blame oneself for somehow "not doing it right" when attempting to combat cancer using alternative methods and failing miserably (literally). Still, I felt confident in defending the ketogenic diet and value of establishing, in myself, a therapeutic level of ketotis when discussing my diet with the dieticians at Froedert Hospital. They had never heard of this and they were, in fact, opposed even to any consumption of anti-oxidants during treatment. They seemed mainly concerned that I did not loose weight and they advocated a diet of high caloric intake -- bring on the glucose!

Digging deeper, I found out the real reason for this is that both radiation and chemotherapy attack quickly dividing cells, so, from their "standard of care" perspective, they want you to consume lots of high calorie, glucose producing food -- this provides the cancer cells with all the fuel they can consume and thus they maintain a high level of reproduction and consequently become more visible targets for the DNA destroying action of both radiation and chemo-therapy. Paradoxically, they want the cancer to be as active as possible during treatments, which, according to their theory, will be more effective if you are consuming a high calorie/glucose diet.

I caved in a couple of weeks after starting radiation and chemo and began eating any and everything that I could get down comfortably. It typically took me 1 hour just to consume a meal. My tongue was like a numb blob and I frequently bit it severely while eating, so I became super cautious when eating. I started to gain weight again. I had been a vegetarian for 5 years and began eating meat again too.

I'm now up to 155lbs and really enjoying eating anything I want. But what if the results of my PET/CT scans on May 2 show that the cancer is still active? There are no more arrows left in the quiver, no more silver bullets left in Froedert hospital's "standard of care". I cannot get radiation to my head and neck again and chemotherapy without radiation is not recommended for me. Then what do I do? I will have no choice but to get back on the ketogenic diet. You would think that I would be doing this right now, regardless of the next round of test results. I have to seriously ponder this...