Angel Raich Update

subject: Angel Raich's brain tumor growing & new brain tumors. I am not
well!

Hello Everyone,

My brain tumor is growing and I have several new brain tumors growing...
The tumor is shrinking on the inside but growing on the outside and now
has several new tumors growing around it! I am in a complete state of
shock! Feel free to pass this email on!

As some of you know I have not been well for a while and it's because of
my brain tumor. In the past few months, I have spent much time in bed
very ill and very sick from the radiation side effects from my radiation
treatment over 2 years ago. In the past few weeks I have been extremely
ill from the tumor. I was not suppose to see my brain tumor specialist
until August but due to my condition I went early and it's a good thing
I did. Here's what is wrong!

Tuesday of this week I went & had an MRI and saw my brain tumor
specialist. I knew something was not right for months and never said a
thing to anyone! Then when in the MRI tube I knew something was
different with the tumor by the sound of the machine it was different.
When my specialist walked into the room he was alone with a nurse with
this different look on his face. Normally he walks in with like 10
doctors & students with was a tip off too. I think he was in as much
shock as I was with what was on the MRI.

Here's what he said, my tumor is growing and now has new several
tumors growing around it. It's growing on a nerve in my brain that
effects the whole right side of my head, lose of sensation, muscle
strength, in my left eye, nose, side of my face, left side of my tongue,
mouth, chin, throat, neck, chewing, and swallowing maybe a few other
things. In the past 4 months I have been having an increasing problem
eating, chewing, and swallowing. In March I weight for the first time
114 pounds, Tuesday of this week I weighted 106 pounds, and today at the
doctor I weighted 103 pounds. Sometimes, when I put food in my mouth or
drink something my eyes roll back in my head, my face droops, and my
speech slurs for 30 minutes sometimes much longer and sometimes shorter.
Its not just a problem with eating its I go through bouts of vomiting
and diarrhea for days. The headaches have gotten much worse, they are
there all the time but they get worse throughout the day, and the
headaches control many symptoms! There are many days I am so sick I
can't get out of bed!

Last July I started having complications where my eyes roll back in my
head and my face droops like a stroke my speech slurs, and other things.
That has not stopped and has become a big concern to my doctor. I am
having many symptoms going all the way down my neck to my shoulder too.
The problem with the tumor growing is that its putting pressure on my
optical nerve and other cranial nerves with I am concern is dangerous
due to the important of some of these cranial nerves, they control even
breathing... He will not be doing radiation again because radiation
treatment failed!

My doctor said, I am the first patient to fail this type of radiation
treatment on the Cyberknife radiation machine. My brain tumor special is
named John Adler at Stanford hospital and he is one of the best brain
tumor special/surgeons in the USA. He even created the Cyberknife. I am
one of his favorite patients and he was really concerned. He said, he
had not seen one of these tumors do what mine is doing so he seemed
puzzled or worried. He said, it's outside the statistics, I then said,
hello, I am always outside of the statistics, he then said, don't remind
me! He showed me the tumor and it is growing quite a bit. He wants to
watch it for the next 3 months, October 27th I go back to see him and
another MRI and if my symptoms do not go away and if the tumor grows and
does not shrink I will have to have surgery on my brain tumor, a tumor
that is non-operable will leave me with no other choice. There are many
many problems or really concerns with that surgery. One is which, I
can't take drugs!!!! How is that going to work???? I then reminded him
of my drug complications and asked how the hell are we going to get me
through a surgery??? He stared a minute and then said, well we are going
to have to get a really good anistiologist on board to help us figure
that one out...

As I said, I am in a state of shock and I have been very ill. I am very
lucky in that Saturday I had a little bit of energy and my friends took
me to see Gregg Allman. One of my friends was Gregg's manager for 30
years. Gregg himself gave me a back stage pass. Saturday night when I
was in his dressing room he lined in and said I heard a lot about you, I
said I have heard lots about you too. He said, he wanted my cell phone
number and called me after the show from his bus on his way to SF. He
asked me to come hang out, and he wanted to take me shopping. The got me
a massage too with was really great. We hit it off and realized we had
so much in common and I stayed with him from Sunday-Wednesday. After my
doctor appointment his was sooo sweet, kind, caring southern gentleman!
He took such great care of me and was very supportive. (He told me he
met Tom Allman too & had something Tom gave him. Gregg says hello!) He
wants me to call him Gregory so if you hear me say Gregory that's why.
Gregory said if I have surgery he will come and camp out at my house for
a bit. Before I went to the doctor Gregory said, he wanted me to go to
Georgia to come visit him at his home in Savanna. But I am just not sure
how traveling will be yet…So I am not sure what I will do yet

My other rock-in-roll friends are talking about having a benefit to
raise funds because there's some tumor treatments over in Germany
they would like me to check out, that help one of their wife's who
was dying of cancerous tumors and this treatment gave her an extra 10
years on her life, plus I need a new mattress since mine is getting
valleys from being in bed so much and it's causing my body to hurt
more, and effects my neck and shoulders, not comfortable at all. The new
mattress is for my special bed frame (it's like a hospital bed the
head and knees raise up is $1,500.00-1, 600.00 dollars. I need really
badly cause it's effecting my neck and shoulders in a really bad way. I
am still in a state of shock, today I was very angry and I always get
angry before I cry...

Many people are asking me what I need and I know I need things, and will
need things in the future! I am just not sure what I need because I am
in such a state of shock and will let you all know what you can do to
help when I get there... One thing for sure I have to set my affairs in
order in case I do dye… I need a will and a crematory, service fees
covered, just in case! I really want to go to congress and yell at them
for not making it so I can be legal under federal law! I am so angry my
work is not done yet but I had no choice but to keep slowing down. I
want to go to the state where that David Evens is who is from Drug Free
America and kick is ass in the media and squash him for getting in my
face on the Supreme Court steps and telling me to dye, for getting on
many radio stations for bashing me for my tumor, bashing me all over in
many states even as recent as this year... This man has been using me to
try to keep patients from getting medicine in other states. I want to
hold a debate on TV and kick is butt back for all the things he has said
about me behind my back. Maybe I should sue him for slander or lying
about me!!! Yeah! I will look into that! Or maybe not… Just angry.
Sorry I am rambling...

I have to say for the first time I am extremely scared!!!! I do not want
to dye! My activist head is wanting to scream at all the people who
stood in my way to have my medicine as it means more to me now more than
ever before.

I have been hiding my illness from everyone and I guess a bit from
myself too. For the last couple years since I lost my case and had
radiation on my tumor I have been missing in action for the most part
and I pushed many of you away not because I didn't like you, or
didn't want to be around you but because my health was failing and I
knew it! I just adopted a new statement, that I would live every day as
if it was my last, and I have been doing my best in the last couple
years to do that. Ever since I got out my wheelchair I have been living,
every moment as a hardcore activist, I gave up everything, my friends
outside the movement, my family that turned their back on my for doing
the work, & my dad said I was dead to him for doing it! Knowing he does
not give a shit about me has been hard in the past 6 years. After I lost
my case and had radiation I was not able to work and realized really
fast how little people in the movement really cared about me as a
person. I became such a name many people just forgot about me which hurt
me to the core! That was the moment I realized maybe I should care more
about myself and less about the people in the movement… This may
have been not true on their part but it was how it looked, felt, and
seemed on my end. So I pushed back the way I have done all my life and I
went missing in action.

In the past two years I have been very ill with bouts of bouncing back,
but never really gaining my footing. I am very sorry for pushing you all
away, I did it as a way to hide so you could not see me cry, see me in
such pain, see me giving up at times, see me greave, freak out, and so I
did not have to tell anyone who sick I have really been and in the last
year it has gotten worse! I hide and struggled to be normal, struggled
to do my work, struggled to see out my own eyes when they roll back. I
spent some time after my case not knowing where I belong in the movement
not strong enough to run a business on my own. I want to write my book
with a ghost writer just in case I do dye from these tumors. I don't
want someone else telling my story because they do not know many things
about me or the case behind the scenes that other are unaware of.
Again, I am sorry for hiding from you all! Hiding from myself, yet
knowing something was wrong. I am lucky that I have one of the best
doctors in the USA.

I will keep you all posted! I will send you another email after I come
out of shock. I no longer live in Oakland or Alameda County. I moved to
Orinda into a very small in-law unit. My cell phone is 510-915-6069 and
my email is angel@angeljustice. org sometimes email is hard because I
can't always see well and sometime it's hard to talk on the
phone because of my headaches but please feel free to keep in touch as I
am sure I will need support if it keep heading towards brain surgery or
worse…

Much love,

Angel McClary Raich

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Angel McClary Raich
Email: angel@angeljustice. org
Cell: 510-915-6069
Yahoo IM: angelraich@yahoo. com
My Website: www.angeljustice. org
US Supreme Court Case
No. 03-1454: Raich v. Gonzales 2004