Today was Ken’s third session of FOLFOX + bevacizumab. So far, so good, but we had to explain to both medical and nursing staff why he was going to be crunching ice cubes and keeping his hands on ice packs for the duration of his oxaliplatin infusion. Ken also had to explain why his hands were a lovely yellow colour – due to the turmeric he spilled all over the place this morning… The doctor was unimpressed – took one look at the diagram of genetic and metabolic pathways explaining why we wanted some blood tests doing, said they were too expensive and seeing as his lymphocytes are coming back up there was no need to worry about anything else unless what he was taking was “interfering” with the chemo.

His list of supplements following my research is growing and taking over the kitchen – not helped by his inability to swallow capsules or tablets, but as I have now sourced tinctures and liposomal liquids for most things, the daily medicine-taking ritual should be a bit easier, even if it takes up more space on the counter. I do wish I’d taken more notice in pharmacognosy – the only thing I remember is that liquorice root contains steroids and so you shouldn’t eat liquorice if you’ve got high blood pressure. However, the last few weeks has shown me that there is a lot more to killing cancer than conventional western medicine would have you believe and nutraceuticals rock!