Snake Oil

Ok...so I was looking for the photo I have of a snake that Lemmie caught and brought to me...so instead of a snake in the grass, we'll have to do with a Lemmie in a tree.

I am often annoyed by various posts and information I find on the web claiming that this or that is a cure for cancer....as a person who has stage IV cancer, I find it cruel that many people out there are snake oil salesmen, making unfounded promises and taking money from people who are willing to do anything to try to stay alive.

Perhaps some of these things which are suggested do have benefit.  However, I find that on some of the web sites I belong to which have posts by people...well....I am suspect.  For instance on the Inspire website the other day, someone posted about a miracle juice....which was curing her of breast cancer.....although when you go to her profile page....she is interested in people who have a gamut of illnesses, from Psoriasis, to various forms of cancers and other unrelated things.....but in the area where she is supposed to tell about herself and her treatments....it is empty.  Somehow I think that this person is not legitimate, but is trying to encourage sales of a particular material.

I encourage people to do further research...and look for information which has been vetted....and checked out.  Sometimes you see the same information posted over and over again, all from the same source.

Sometimes the anecdotal information is re-posted from poor research, unscientific research which has been pretty much dismantled by the medical field.  and some of it flies in the face of biology.  My favorite is that using deodorant causes breast cancer....well, the person who did the original "study" asked a group of people in the U.S.  who had breast cancer if they used deodorant.  Guess what....almost all of them did..ergo, reasoned the researcher, deodorant caused breast cancer.  But just thing...using deodorant is almost universal in the U.S.  So it goes to figure that people who had breast cancer also used deodorant.

One thing I see over and over now is "changing your body's pH by eating an alkaline diet.  Your body is an amazing machine.  Your stomach digests things using....acids and other things.  It is counter productive to try to change your body's pH....it just isn't going to happen.....and neutralizing your stomach acids isn't such a hot idea either.

I could go on and on.  Be aware.  Look into things more deeply.  Ask questions.  Look to see who is writing and WHY they are writing.  If you see holes....run.

On the Horizon?

Today a friend posted on facebook about some research that an Israeli firm is doing on making a cancer vaccine.  It is unusual in that it will be used as well for cancer treatment.  From the description, it sounds similar to the one described in the Roger Williams Medical trial that I entered my name in for the pool of guinea pigs.

Here's the link:  One of the things which causes me concern with this is that usually when you are modifying the person's cells (in this case T-cells) it is REALLY expensive because it is person specific, not the drugs that pharmaceutical companies can mass produce and give to the masses.....yet, I think that this is probably the best route to go for cancer treatment.

What scares me? Well, I'm worried that perhaps it will be the case of those who can afford it will get it and the rest of us will die.  I'm also a little concerned at how long it will take for this to be approved in the U.S.

Why? The U.S. is often very slow to approve things.  Take, for instance, my dental implants.  They were developed in Sweden by Branmark...my dentist who did it told me that they had been doing it for 30 years when I had mine done almost 20 years ago.  However, the insurance companies and the other "boards" in the U.S. said that they were "experimental."  Therefore, when I needed something to replace the partial plate I had been given when I was 17, the insurance paid a whopping $400, and this was on a $16,000 bill.

I also shiver when I think of what someone I knew in Connecticut went through.  She was dying from breast cancer, and there was a trial which looked like it might be promising for her.  Usually, such trials are done by lottery to be fair...however we were all aghast when someone who was fairly high in a Breast Cancer Foundation locally told her that SHE could get the friend into the trial, IF she would agree to work on the fundraiser in a specific way.

Sounded fishy at the time.....and it does make me wonder.

I am interested in this platform.  Hopefully it will work on many cancers.  I am hurt when I think of my friend Stephanie who is suffering from Pancreatic Cancer.  Nothing new has come down the pike for pancreatic cancer in many years.  Breast cancer has a lot of money and awareness going for it....some of the other cancers are less "sexy" and so they get less attention and less work done on them.  Some cancers are rare enough that pharmaceutical companies aren't interested in investing the money and time to develop drugs to treat them as they won't be profitable enough.

I don't think that one disease is any more important than any other....however, I will admit I'd really like them to get some drugs to help me ASAP on the shelf and in my blood stream.

Until then, I'll look on the horizons and just wonder at the beautiful skys that one can see here on the Fly-over state of Ohio.

Today and Tomorrow

Today I was out working a little in my garden. My neighbor popped out and asked me how I was doing. I feel like this is always a loaded question. Do I tell them that I'm hurting and I'm afraid that this is what it is going to be for the rest of my life? I just nodded and said "I'm OK."

She proceeded to tell me about her daughter-in-law, a woman who is older than I am and was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. "She's cured!" my neighbor chirped. I'm afraid at that I just mumbled something incomprehensible and walked away.

I was irritated. At present, breast cancer can't be cured. It can be beaten back. It can be managed as a chronic illness, but it can't be cured. If it could, I'd be first in line to get the magic elixir.

Tomorrow, I go to the oncologist for my monthy dose of Faslodex, a once every three month dose of Zometa, and my once every three months visit with my doc. Hopefully, my tumor markers will have fallen. They take a week to get back to me. My current doctor, James Sabiers, is a good guy, but he's not used to working with me yet. He tends not to lay everything out and I sort of have to pull it out of him.

With my oncologist in Connecticut, Dr. Samuel Bobrow at the Hospital of St. Raphael's in New Haven, I felt like we were a team. We discussed things and he told me what the plan was...sometimes it was sort of fun as I proposed things and he thought about them....sketching out treatments on the tissue covering the exam table.

With Dr. Sabiers, I'm not there yet. He did tell me that if the markers rise, then the Faslodex and Zometa aren't working and he'll put me on chemo. Tomorrow, I'll make him outline what and how long. This will be the third course of chemo I've had if I get it. I'm pretty sure that I'll have to get it as my bones tell me that things are not going too well. Last night not only did I have the pain in my pelvis (the acetabulum) but I also had extreme cramping in my feet.

This summer, I made a quilt for a lymphoma patient. On the quilt, the person who commissioned it had me write a saying by John Wayne. I really liked it and wondered that I had never heard it before: "Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."

Cures for the Wealthy?

Earlier this month, the news was full of a new treatment was approved by the FDA which had been developed for late-stage prostate cancer. In this treatment, white blood cells were removed from the patient's body and treated with protein fragments from the cancer cells. This stimulated the immune response of the body.

This seems to me, at least on the surface, to be a great break through as I feel that the key to battling cancer is to look at the individual's immune response. After all, these are our individual cells which have run amok. Granted, I'm not a scientist, nor to I play one on T.V., but it just seems logical.

What doesn't seem logical though is that one of the reports I heard about this said that it was extremely expensive as it isn't mass-produced and that it takes a fairly long time in order to do it. Does this mean that if this IS the way to treat cancer that only the wealthy will be able to take advantage of it? Even now, it is a bit maddening to know that there are lots of adjuvant therapies which I could do, if I was willing or able to shell out the extra money to do it. In this case, I mean therapies which are not necessarily proven to stem the tide, but seem to have positive effects, such as qi gong, additional health suppliements, and other non-traditional therapies.

The other maddening thing is that this treatment only resulted in an additional four months of longevity in the study group. If I were part of this group, I would sure as heck want more than just an additional four months....In other words..once again, we are just not getting the full picture.