Hello

Grace is now 7 and 1/2. Lacy is 3 and 1/2.

In January, William turned 11 and it was my 40th birthday party.

February found us in Texas for the Austin Marathon. I managed to walk the half-marathon in 3 hours 38 minutes with my mother-in-law Katie at my side for support. We visited my father's birthplace in Marble Falls, a real cattle ranch.

April we celebrated Martha's birthday and had a great time at the 80th birthday celebration of Joanne Milburn, Matha's aunt. Joanne gave us all the great gift of getting to know the Milburn-Fellows clan. May found us in Brooklyn returning my mother's ashes to her birthplace and inurning them in the city of the dead, Green-Wood Cemetery. After we said our good-byes to mom, we spent a few days tromping around Manhattan and wore the feet off of our poor little children. The PATH train brought us from Jersey City to "ground zero" each day we came to the city. The train stops in a temporary station in a BIG hole. It has a very powerful and sad resonance there.

All of this I did and experienced while sick or recovering from chemo. There is no choice when one does chemo every other week.

One is always more or less sick on such a regimine.

When I returned from New York, however, I had made up my mind and heart that two years was enough chemo.

Two years of making myself take that nasty stuff into my arm (now a 6.5 hour infusion), of feeling deathly sick for days and then, fighting to regain some mental and physical composure only to do it again was enough.

I realised that I was very powerful in my ability to fight and overcome adversity. I decided that since I can put of my energy into maintaining my physical and mental grounding in the face of chemo then I can stop doing chemo and put all of my energy into diet, exercise and meditation.

This may seem shocking, foolish and scary to some. My chemo has been "working". I am alive. I do have some life when I am not sick. But the window is narrow and the chemo is knocking me down a notch every time. The doctors advise me to wait for the chemo to stop working before I try something new. Now is when I have enough strength to fight it and later who knows.

I want to try something proactive, I want to try to use my energy to bring my body's natural abilities and my mind's deep capacity for healing into the battle against the tumors.

I have been on a diet of raw and live food www.living-foods.com/faq.html since I returned from New York. My energy has been great and my strength is building. I have checked in with my oncologist, Kevin Chang(http://www.venturaoncology.com/), and I am in good shape with my tumor markers holding "stable". I will continue to have him monitor me during this new approach.

I am considering enrolling in the Pan Vac trial at USC www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00088660 I am considering enrolling in this trial but ultimately, I feel that my spirit or my body will fail if I do not take some action, some life affirming steps feel that focusing on making my body as healthy as I can for the fight against cancer is my path for now. Should things change drastically, I may reconsider.

Raise your cup of wheat grass, here's to all our health!

Love,

John