Thanks to kind donations at Hiroshi & Yae's wedding and Hiroshi's generous doubling of that amount from his own savings we just donated 20,000Y to the Ashinaga orphanage!  - nice!!! I also donated 100GBP to the Willow Foundation from funds raised & added 100GBP to my fund which unfortunately is almost dry after a year if intensive treatment & care! THANK YOU!!! Add your pledge to my 100km challenge now dave@mymtokyo.com - I have run 38km so far, only 62 to go! Next race is Folkestone Coastal run in Kent UK on May 27th...

(Personal update coming soon)

弥恵と紘の結婚パーティーでの皆様の募金とそれを倍の額にしてもらった紘の協力により「あしなが育英会」へ２万円ほどのお金を募金する事ができました、皆様ご協力ありがとうございました。また100ポンド（約13000円）をWillow Foundationへ募金もさせて頂き、さらには自身の治療ファンドに同額を追加させて頂きました。ファンドも１年にも及ぶ集中的な治療を経て残り僅かとなりました。ありがとうございました！僕の100km挑戦への募金、是非お願い致します（dave@mymtokyo.com）。本日までに38kmを走りきり、残り62kmとなりました。次のレースは５月２７日のイギリスはケントでのFolkestone Coastal 10Kです。。。

(Translation H. Naka)

Shell-shock ... the liver wievels strike again!!!

I am just a little shell-shocked, but I am ok. I still feel strong, healthy notwithstanding the continuing bowel I am still ironing out, and I know I look good because everybody keeps saying so & this time I believe it because I am only 4 kg off my pre-diagnosis weight (63kg last weighed) and I feel pretty bloody good too. The sun is shining, I am about to spend 3 lovely weeks in Japan. I wont let the news get me down, I just need a few days to regroup. Yesterday my oncologist gave me my latest scan report & I'm afraid to say I have 3 new cancerous areas in my liver & the lung tumours continue to grow. My CEA (tumour marker) blood test has sky rocketed to double what it was 3 months ago so that probably explains why the liver tumors have appeared. Why is very difficult to say, but for sure I am been more relaxed about diet, etc so maybe a tightening of that would be useful. I have also allowed some stress to creep into every day life too, mainly caused by my laptop it has to be said. I cant deny some frustration trying to finish tracks for release & just the general feeling of energy disruption or depletion I feel when I am spending too much time answering too emails, trying to set up Mariana tours or events or generally getting sucked into Facebook, etc, in front of my wonderfully yet no doubt highly electromagnetically charged machine. So, resolution one is:

1. Get outdoors whenever possible. Light is life!

2. Forget about my ambitions, except those which are obviously healing. There's no point having 'success' if you are dead. Anyway I am already a good DJ, something that I can do in a state of almost meditative calm & which I enjoy very much. If I need to be creative with music thats how I can release it. That or finding an engineer to help me produce my tracks, if I really cant hold it in. I would really love to get my Tr nch works up till now done and dusted. But, not if it causes me stress!

3. Learn to surf. I've wanted to do it for years & this summer I am DEFINITELY going to start. Hopefully in the UK once I am back from Japan (to see some cherry blossom, do an event & then go to dear friends' wedding 4.6-23) then in California in August, where I hope to meet some friends so I can also go to Yosemite & the Redwood National Park to bond with some very very old & very very VERY tall ancient organisms who must have a lesson or two about my ambition to live to 100 years & out live the lot of you! I'm also looking forward to a week in Berlin in May.

That will do for now. As my new friend Tami said 'if they can grow in 3 months, then can go in 3 months'. I will toast my wheatgrass shot to that!

Be good & if you cant, for god's sake BE HEALTHY!!!
Dave

P.S. Race 3 on 31st March in Richmond - another 10k - still taking pledges. Even 10p per kilometre would be amazing, 50p brilliant! I am more motivated than ever to run the goal of 100km this year, to keep my fund going, plus raise some money for some wonderful small charities dear to me. PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY.

Spot the idiot... AsHford 10k COMPLETE!!!

54:13 my time, 347th out of 550 runners. Pretty happy with that (not so happy with my sweaty wet cast!)... WHOOP WHOOP!!!

These legs are made for running (and falling) ...

Oh dear. After some timely nagging by my dear father I looked at my blog only to see that as I think about the second 10k looming over the horizon (tmr!) I havent even blogged about the first!!! Shock horror... and my medal had been hanging proudly (or is it me proudly looking at it hanging?) in my hallway, ready to be joined over the year by another 8 or so, for a month! I hope to build up the distances over the year culminating in a no doubt leg aching half marathon if all goes well hence not 10 x 10k. So, I came in 79th out of 105 doing 5 miles in 44 minutes which I think is not too bad for a man with stage IV cancer & a fractured scaphoid, strapped up at the time but unknowingly hiding a fracture they didnt confirm til 2 weeks later from an unfortunate bicycle accident (I know, if its not one thing its another!) still, I am very much hoping to improve on my place in the next race (eek! its tomorrow AND its raining!) even though I havent been running as much as I'd like. If you felt how wet & sweaty this cast (i now have) gets after an hour long run you'd understand... 

So, RACE NO. 2 COMING UP TMW : : : THIS TIME A 10K (thats about 6 miles!) www.ashfordanddistrict10k.co.uk!!!

In case you missed it, I am doing the 100k challenge of which this race is part in aid of my local muliple sclerosis therapy centre, the Willow foundation (giving seriously ill young uns a day out to remember), my own treatment fund (running worryingly low) & the Ashinaga orphanage in Japan. So far I havent been able to raise anything like the pledges I need to reach my 10,000GBP target (though massive thanks for those kind people who have!). So, if you can pledge even just 10p per KM would be great... 1GBP or a dollar or 1000yen per km would be brilliant!!! you can pledge in the comments section or to my email!  

FYI the next 2 will be Richmond 10k on 31st March followed by  a charity 10k in Japan on 8th April, which I am very much looking forward to!

IN OTHER NEWS, I will go for some extensive dental work at the Munro Hall clinic in Bedford next week to remove what they call 'chronic infections' behind the roots of my 2 front teeth which will be removed (so no more butter-melting smiles from me! he he ... ) AND the 4 cavitation infections hiding in the cavities left behind when my wisdown teeth were removed 10 years ago. Its an interesting field (holistic dentistry) which relates these infections not recognized in conventional dentistry to chronic disease due to their potential toxic load on the body. Obviously we all know amalgams and mercury filling are not going to be good for us (if we dont we damn well should!) but I do believe in this body of work too ... our teeth are undoubtably connected to the rest of our body so, added to my continually improving health (yes I have actually been even sleeping almost the whole night through every night lately!!) & this I am really hoping that the healing of these infections will be the straw (or at least something close to a straw) to break the camel's back (though i have rather a lot of 'camels' in my lungs at present), so my immune system can finally 'see' the rogue (naughty!) cells and zap them until they are squished to smithereens and this 32 year old man is completely, 100% and fully CANCER FREE.

I have a dream ...

Running update & (short) book review!!!

I managed 45-50 minutes running today in the snow and ice with my yak trak's on my runners

so that puts the mileage I can handle at around 85% of what I will be running on Feb 19th! almost ready (this snow isnt helping though!) .. any more pledges feel free to drop me a line dave@mymtokyo.com

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Just finished the second book 'The Te of Piglet' which is different to the Tao of Pooh (my fabourite book ever right now!) but also an abolutely fantastic read for anyone feeling the burn of modern life and perhaps needing a return to amore simple life... highly recommended by me (and my dad!)

100Km Challenge Progress Report

I managed to run just over 4 miles the other day (7km+) in training without too much trouble. Legs getting bit jellified - not surprising considering I dont eat carbs or grains! - but other than that on track I think with fitness! First race is 10km on Feb 19th with my dear friend Shelley. If anyone else wants to run with me this year my dear mum has offered to pay our entry fee's so give me a shout to my email maustokyo@gmail.com or text me +44 7896 868099! Find a race and I am there!
Keep the pledges coming!!!

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RECOMMENDED

Mandala Yoga Ashram - anyone in the UK who wants to go deeper this is the place to go. I am going back in february for Karma Yoga week and longer. Cant wait!

Considering a trip to India too lately... love to get to the Satyananda Ashram in Bihar... their books are FANTASTIC!

Diary entry 12/6/2011

My Dad said I should include more of the personal musings I often include in my letters to him so here goes ... erm ... something...

Dec 6th
After a mostly self-inflicted lovely but hectic day before - presents, treatment, running, then a comedy club with some family and friends - and not enough sleep by half somehow today I feel a real power & strength leaving for Japan. Writing Christmas cards I realise that this year has actually been utterly incredible really - my trip to the Lake District with the Willow Foundation, my (albeit belated) Japan trip in July, Mauritius with my father and lovely brother and sister, lots of wonderful support from my family in the UK & of course the most amazing one of all my alternative treatment fundraising success. When I think of all that the challenges I (it feels more like we now though) faced throughout the year: 2 months of chemo, my ill-fated colostomy reversa leading to the very disappointingly (at the time, now it doesnt seem to matter at all) cancelled japan trip in May, 3 visits to Accident & Emergency including rudely interrupting a hatha yoga courseI didnt even get to start at the ashram (quite the opposite physically I can tell you!) - just fall away into insignificance. I find myself with only one sentence hanging in the air, like a clean sock tumbling from its apex in the dryer: I wouldnt change a thing! If I did I'd have to give up the most incredible thing - the knowledge that I am loved & the feeling of being supported when a hippopotamus-like load is balanced precariously on your state of mind. The stress destroying positive energy in the comments and generosity of you all - family & friends across the globe - has been nothing short of overwhelming, allowing me to invest in my body even so deep as at a cellular level with some of the things it has given me the purchase power to do. And guess what? … digestive troubles aside I feel fantastic for it! Finally my fitness and energy levels are getting back to around June 2010 levels, the last time I was really physically fit enough to run 30 minutes. I have a long way to go but its a start…

When I think of my nephew Louis' cycling efforts raising over 1000 pounds so far, Josh & crew in Tokyo raising over 1500 with the help of all my amazing friends out there doing a party in my honour, plus all the individual donations and comments I feel something really intense happening. The earth feels like its moving, but around me & in support of me rather that falling away from under me - how I feel when I am buried in the mud of chemotherapy - or that the ground has given way beneath you - how it feels when you're suffering the post-op agony of major surgery. To the backdrop of that mire the kindness of this last year takes me far beyond thoughts of 'why me?', 'did I do this to myself?', 'what did I do wrong?', that so many fellow cancer patients seem to suffer with … I am left with the insight bursting through that my cancer far from being a curse is actually a gift - granted wrapped in a rather displeasing box. With it came unending love from my family, unfaltering and sometimes surprising support from friends even thousands of miles across the other side of the world and of course the grateful realisation that I am still one of the lucky ones - one of the luckiest I sometimes think - to not only have all this but also the beauty of natural all around me every day, which I appreciate like never before.

Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart where I discover a little pulsating ball of increasingly bright light of a soul you know as Dave quietly resides, biding his time. For what only time will tell, but time is something we all have - NOW is never ending.

http://vimeo.com/34236830


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ps. some books you might like...
Benjamin Hoff - The Tao of Poo & The Te of Piglet - officially my favourite book ever so far!!!
Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now ... wonderful handbook how to live more in the present
Swami Nirmalanda - Yogic Management of Cancer ... has helped me so much this year!