#25 Surgery

On the 8th of March 2011 we checked Becky into the Hampton South Hospital for surgery on her left breast and a few benign lumps on her scalp. How did we get to this point? Well, from the beginning Becky had been against Chemo and Radiation therapy. Surgery, however, had always been an option which we may elect to use at some point.

The decision was made by Becky since it IS her body and she was the one who had to live with both the procedure and the lack of a breast for the rest of her life. My main job (besides chief researcher) has always been simply to support Becky every step of the way. I voiced my opinion which was that 1) I had no objections to the surgery at all and 2) I felt that by eliminating the tumors in her breast we stood a much better chance of eliminating the other cancers in her body. She agreed and we spoke with the surgeon and he scheduled the operation for us.

The operation began about 0930 and only lasted about 35 minutes. She spent about 2 hours in recovery outside the operating suite before I was permitted to escort her up to her room. Once there she was basically in and out of consciousness for the next 24 hours. It seems that her body reacted more than expected to the anesthesia.

What happened was that her entire left breast and two adjacent lymph nodes were removed. While there was no sign of involvement the nodes were removed as a precautionary measure. Within the breast was one large mass (roughly golf ball size at this point and 4 smaller masses which were laid out radially around the main mass through a 180 degree arc towards the center of her chest. She has about an 8 inch incision running horizontally across her chest then upward towards her arm pit. It is closed with perhaps 25 staples and she has two vacuum assisted drain tubes located about an inch and a half apart and perhaps an inch below the main incision.

All the questionable tissue was sent to pathology and we should have those results in about two weeks. It will be interesting to see how well our alternative therapy has worked. We know it has been successful at shrinking the tumor mass. What we're interested in is if it has also been successful in actually killing or converting the cancer.

As I said before.... she was mostly asleep for the first 24 hours following the operation. This was supposed to be a day surgery however her reaction to the anesthesia was not going to permit her to leave that day. On Wednesday she was still quite groggy at breakfast time. By lunch, however, she was much more alert and able to eat a good bit of her meal. The Doctor's opinion though was that she really should spend one more day in the hospital.... and that she should take a shower.

It's the Doctor's belief that showers are therapeutic for patients. Naturally they feel cleaner afterwords but the shower is also a relaxing experience. He was right. Becky felt much better after having a shower and getting into a new gown. About an hour after the shower she was walking the hallway for exercise and to get her circulation going. We took a short walk first then a longer one several hours later.

On the third morning she was awake and quite alert when I arrived shortly before 0800. She ate the majority of her breakfast and we waited for the Doctor to arrive and make his assessment. He arrived about 10 and was pleased with the progress he saw. Since she was more lucid today he fully explained what had happened during the surgery and answered all of our questions. This Doctor is a *very* caring man and we both feel blessed that we were able to find him to help us in our battle with cancer.

He said that she had made great progress and that she could be released...... right after she took a shower. So we got her into the shower again and she did spend a good 15 minutes in there enjoying the nice warm water. Dried, dressed and ready the nurse showed up with a wheel chair and we rolled her towards the front door. She got into the car all by herself and we bid farewell to the hospital and the wonderful staff who had done such a great job.

She is home now and both resting and taking care of small projects she can do while seated. While she was gone I only saw one of the stray cats we look after at our house.... and she was the shy one! Becky gets back home and within minutes of her arrival all of the strays make an appearance for her. Okay.... I see who they like best! :-) Inside her Paige kitty wanders around for a while then jumps up into her chair to check on her and get some pets. Home seems as happy to have her back as she is to be back!

I'll post another update when we have the pathology reports back and let you folks know what was going on. Till then....... Peace

#24 New Stuff

For those following we had another set of scans performed and a follow up visit a week later with her oncologist. We must be singlehandedly making the man bankrupt judging by his efforts to get her to do chemotherapy. Now Becky and I are not exactly on the down slope of the intelligence scale..... so if you're going to try to pull a fast one your game better be spot on or we'll nail you. He tried but we both caught him at it.

What he tried to do was show us two sets of scans to illustrate how the cancer has progressed and thus convince her to agree to chemotherapy. So he pops up the "before" and "after" scans and sure enough on the second set of scans there is about twice as much tissue involved in high uptake of the radioactive marker as in the first set. One minor problem though. Soft tissue still shows up on the scans as a faint shadow..... thus you can see the "outline" of the body being scanned. Well in his presentation the "after" scan showed the outline of a body that weighed perhaps 230 pounds. Becky only weighs about 145 pounds right now though.... so it's really tough to explain how she happened to gain and loose about 90 pounds in the 15 or 20 minutes it took to take the scans. BUSTED!!

Taken in their *correct* order the scans indicated that we've managed to reduce the cancer by a good 50% so far..... and we're still on the attack. We recently uncovered some more research on various over the counter supplements that we believe will be a good augmentation for the program we already have in place. One of the supplements goes by the abbreviation DIM which is much easier than Di-Indole Methane. DIM has been shown in clinical studies to promote the healthier metabolism of estrogen in both women and men. Since Becky's cancer is estrogen receptive this addition makes sense. She takes the Arimidex as an estrogen inhibitor already and we feel that the addition of the DIM will further serve to starve the cancer of this substance. As an aside I'm taking the DIM also since it is a fact that estrogen levels in men begin to rise over 50 years of age as the testosterone levels start to decrease. This estrogen increase tends to cause older guys to grow a nice spare tire around the middle. I'm sporting a lovely raised white letter low profile steel belted radial myself. Hopefully that will go flat and fade away over the next several months.

We added in another couple of vitamins and she started using a supplement called Alka-Max too. This is a powered "drink mix" which can be added to water. It has a slight citrus flavor so Becky mixes it with her black tea and it seems to be palatable that way. Of course the idea there is to shift her body to a more alkaline state which is inhospitable to cancer cells. This also seems to be a fairly easy and painless method of getting that result as she drinks a lot of tea anyway.

Otherwise she is visiting the surgeon on Friday the 25th and, with luck, will have a date for her surgery set when she leaves. If not that will at least be in the works. I believe I mentioned that he is 100% certain he can remove all the cancerous material with 0% risk of any breakout or spreading. We're both in agreement that this is the correct course of action as it will permit all of our efforts to concentrate on the cancer which had earlier spread to her spine and rib. The scans also showed dark areas on her left shoulder joint and hip joints....... but she has had arthritis in those for years so we believe that the darkness is the result of an increased uptake of the radioactive marker in those joints due to the increased blood flow caused by inflammation.

Otherwise bone density seems to still be rather good over all. She does take vitamin D and calcium daily. There is a treatment (Yes another alternative therapy) out there that can rebuild the arthritic joints in a fairly short period of time It uses a combination of an injection of a solution which irritates the joint...... and an infusion of ozoneated blood back into the system. The ozone in the blood makes far more oxygen available and triggers a rapid rebuilding of the joint material. (As a side benefit the extra oxygen also kills cancer cells as they are anaerobic)

That's it for right now. I'll fill everyone in as we learn more!

Needed now more than ever..... peace.......

#23 February Update

It's time to update everyone on what has been going on lately. We continue to see the oncologist at the Arlington Cancer Center. Much to his dismay we continue to have success *without* resorting to either Chemo or Radiation. (this, of course, does not help his income rise) :-) On our last visit, which was Monday the 31st of January, her cancer marker were slightly elevated but we're not concerned with that finding. Remember that we had Becky off the DCA for nearly 3 months and that is the main element in our alternative therapy. She is back on it now at her weight adjusted dose and we expect the progress to continue.

Earlier in January we had an appointment with the surgeon. He's satisfied that the tumor has shrunk enough to permit surgery and be able to have a nice clean closing line. He is also quite confident that he can remove *all* of the cancer tissue in her breast without any risk of metastasis. As of now we're considering tumor removal this month which will likely have Becky off work for a week or so. Pretty much the entire left breast will be removed. We think that this will help us combat the cancer that is in one rib and a couple of vertebra.

Even if the main mass is totally dead we'd prefer not to have that tissue in her breast. To us that just seems like asking for problems down the road. If it's mostly dead but has some active cells inside somewhere..... then eliminating it also eliminates the risk of those cells escaping and causing problems elsewhere. No specific date for the surgery has been set at the time of this writing. At most we honestly don't expect her to be in the hospital more than overnight.

Otherwise she is doing quite well. The dietary changes mean that she is still loosing some weight which is helping with her hips and knees as they have less weight to bear. We also got rid of our old "sleep number" bed and acquired a mattress from IKEA. We added a 2.5 inch memory foam topper to that and a 72 spring base under it. So far it has helped Becky get a much better nights sleep than before so it was a good investment. She typically sleeps on one side or the other..... but since the new mattress she has been sleeping more on her back. Before she complained of back pain when she woke up but that seems to be a thing of the past now.... for which I am most thankful.

As soon as we have any additional information about her surgery I'll post an update here. I doubt she will in the hospital long enough for cards or flowers to reach her there. We'll discuss the possibility of posting our address here..... but I suspect that anyone reading this already has that information.

As a parting thought...... "Love as if you'll die tomorrow but learn as though you'll live forever."

Peace....................

#22 It's good news time!

For those of you who have been following these sporadic postings you know it's been an uphill battle right from the beginning. We had the previous cancer history of both of Becky's parents and their "main stream" medical outcome. Point blank... they both died wasted away and penniless after the medical system had "done all they could do." Nice code speak for keeping them barely alive long enough to drain them of not only their dignity but also their life savings.

Becky flatly refused to follow that path when she found out she had cancer too. She had seen how well "modern" cancer treatment worked first hand and the sad fact is...... it usually doesn't. People who recover after traditional treatment seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies don't make any money by curing you...... only by *treating* you... so there is no incentive to find a true cure in America.

Thus we began the slow and difficult investigation of alternative therapy options. The power of the FDA and big Pharma to intimidate, prosecute and imprison people for saying or writing things they don't approve of is frightening. (Hang on, gang, because the recent passage of S510 gives them far more power to control your life..... by controlling your food supply!) We had some false starts with therapies which were simply not powerful enough to combat what we were dealing with..... and we lost ground. More research and a couple of more trips in the wrong direction and we eventually started to make some progress.

Cancer has a few things going for it. #1 is that it is basically immortal. Once a defective cell changes enough to become cancerous the apoptosis (natural programmed cell death) stops. #2 is that it is highly adaptive. There isn't just one cancer... there are hundreds and they affect all parts of the body. #3 is almost complete environmental isolation. Cancer survives as a fairly isolated entity in an environment of it's own creation. It's mechanism for creating the energy it needs is totally different from what all normal cells utilize. It is also able to "hide" itself through chemical signals which make it invisible to the bodies normal immune system responses.

The treatment we eventually came to utilize targets as many of cancers unique properties as we can without having any one treatment compromise any of the other treatments. Everything has to work together for maximum benefit.

Becky's cancer is estrogen receptive..... meaning that it has the ability to convert estrogen into an energy source. That had to be dealt with so she takes an estrogen inhibitor called Arimidex. The immortality issue had to be addressed so we eventually settled on DCA to handle that task.

We started adding Oleander extract to accomplish two different tasks. One is to kill stray cancer cells should they be drifting around in her body attempting to settle in elsewhere. The second is that the Oleander interferes with atherogenesis which is cancers ability to cause the body to grow new blood vessels to support it as it grows.

We tossed Amygdalin into the mix to kill the cancer outright. This was taken via tablets but with those we had no way of verifying what *exactly* was in them. Might have been all fillers. So we use dried apricot kernels instead purchased from a Christian farm in Canada. With all these measures we were attacking the cancer from four different directions and attempting to target cancers various traits and weaknesses. To all of that we added supplements to support her immune system so it could deal with the treatment as well as help her effectively eliminate debris from her body. Many many of you.... added the power of prayer and for that we cannot thank you enough!

And now.... the GOOD news! On her last visit to the Oncologist he found that ALL of her cancer markers were down! The mass in her breast continues to shrink even if slowly. There is no sign of the cancer spreading to any of her internal organs either. Also the open sores that had appeared in her breast following the biopsy have all started to heal and grow closed. Even though we had declined conventional chemo and radiation at Baylor and even though we had declined the same therapy with our current Oncologist..... her cancer is still shrinking and being eliminated from her body. Her Dr. said he saw no reason to keep monitoring her monthly and we're going to go now every 2 to 3 months.

We both know that we're far from being out of the woods yet even though it is getting a bit brighter now. We will likely continue with our current therapy as formulated now for at least one to two more years. After that we'll likely keep it in place but at a lowered dose for the rest of her life as a prophylactic measure.

Meanwhile our focus is expanding to address other internal issues. I have made an appointment for her to see Dr. Liu who is a Dr. of traditional Chinese Acupuncture and herbal therapy. She also has 8 years and two degrees in "female" medicine. Our goal in seeing her is two fold. One is to bring her body back into balance so that it can more effectively combat the cancer that remains. The second is to address some female issues.

I consider Dr. Liu to be a miracle worker. I had suffered from various skin issues related to agent orange for over 20 years. The VA kept sending me home with more and more drugs to take..... but nothing ever improved. I stopped taking all the VA prescribed drugs and went to see Dr. Liu. She had my skin back to normal in less than 30 days! Over 6 years later and I'm still doing better than at any time the VA was "treating" me.

The estrogen inhibitor and some other issues have resulted in a rather significant decline in her sex drive. While normal aging and menopause can have a negative impact in that area most women still exhibit some interest in sexual activity even if at a reduced frequency. Going from normal activity to no activity, however, is neither typical nor normal.

The battle wages on but at least we seem to have the upper hand now and are making measurable progress. Becky has lost a significant amount of weight but is fairly stable now right around 160 pounds. That weight loss simply takes more stress off her system. She remains happy and positive about everything we're doing and is enjoying being back at work with her friends.

If nothing else our struggle, although far from over, indicates that everything you've ever been told about cancer and how to treat it is a lie. Many clinics and many doctors all over the world are treating cancer very differently from the "standard model" here in America and are having amazing results. All without the ugly side effects and dangers associated with Chemo, Radiation and Surgery. Becky never lost her hair, was ill but never the deathly sick that Chemo and Radiation cause. Her cancer has gone down from the size of a grapefruit to perhaps the size of a handball. Still large..... but shrinking rather than growing. Even with our success there are therapies that were left untried....... most simply due to expense. All that means is that IF we need them..... there are still other effective treatment options left for us to use.

She sees Dr. Liu on the 8th for her first visit. From my experience it can take a few weeks before the effects of the acupuncture and the herbal teas are noticeable in a significant way. Once they begin, however, changes occur fairly rapidly and can be dramatic. I'll keep you posted.

Until then.... be good to each other and may God bless.

#21 Minor Update - proper DCA dose & side effects

Hey, gang! I thought I'd provide an update based upon some recent developments with our alternative therapy.

As you'll recall one of the main items in our program is a substance known as DCA for short. This substance has been proven to re-awaken the mitochondria in cancer cells thus bringing on apoptosis or natural cell death. A slow process to be sure but a good thing none the less.

The dosage of DCA is a weight to milligram ratio. When we began use of this product Becky was above the 200 pound number on the scale. Based upon the numbers from an on line calculator her dose worked out to just shy of 1200 milligrams total for that weight.

Delayed light bulb moment here! As her weight declined so should have her dose..... a fact we both totally overlooked. Also we had decided that one capsule every 12 hours or so would ensure that there was always enough DCA circulating in her system so as to always be available to the cancer. Another OOPS moment. That initial 1200 mg dose was calculated to be taken once every 24 hours.... not 12. As her weight came down the dose should have followed to keep the same amount of DCA available in her system..... thus her dose NOW should be roughly 770 mg rather than the starting rate of 1200..... and certainly FAR less than the 2400 mg she was taking.

The effect of this higher than necessary dose rate has been the onset of a problem with her fine motor skills..... noticeable mostly by trembling hands. Additionally she had developed some peripheral neuropathy and also easily induced generalized fatigue. After spending several days researching everything she is taking for side effects and possible negative interactions with other medications and supplements I found the DCA connection.

Fortunately the "cure" for all those bothersome side effects is rather simple. Just stop taking the DCA for a little while..... three days minimum..... one to two weeks at the most. All those problems should be alleviated after that time and she can then resume the DCA at it's proper dose rate and level.

Thus we encounter again the dark side of alternative cancer therapy..... lack of good solid information due to the fear that either the American Cancer Society or the FDA.... or both are going to track you down and lock your ass up. (Yes... it happens all the time and has been going on for well over 60 years) There is very little "Freedom of speech" when the pocket books of large pharmaceutical companies are in danger of getting less money. Simply put.... your life and the lives of those you love come in a far distant second to profits for the drug companies and the power of the FDA.

Anyway.... if you are using or planning on using DCA keep a close eye on the weight of the patient. Change the total mg dose rate as necessary to compensate for fluctuations in total body weight. If you detect ANY of the symptoms noted above simply stop taking the DCA for a minimum of 3 days and monitor for the reduction of those symptoms. Use the DCA in concert with black tea and vitamin B1 to increase its effectiveness. If necessary adopt a program of DCA for three days followed by a three day break. Continue the black tea and B1 during the break.

Additionally..... remember that *everything* that enters your blood stream passes through your liver. The liver can become over taxed by both environmental toxins and debris resulting from dying cancer cells..... and needs to be maintained. One simple method is to squeeze the juice of one fresh lemon into an 8oz glass of filtered or purified water and drink that at the start of each day. During the day to can also take Milk Thistle to aid in cleansing and R-Alpha Lipoic Acid (R-ALA or just plain ALA) to help generate new liver cells and serve as a powerful anti-oxidant.

As always.... be good to each other.

Peace

#20 Slow progress

Hello again to everyone following along here. Sorry for the huge gaps between posts but, for the most part, fighting cancer is a lot like watching grass grow in reverse. On a day to day basis not a whole heck of a lot is noticeable so there's not much to write. Over slightly longer time spans though one can begin to note subtle changes.

We had another visit with the Oncologist at the Arlington Cancer Center today. He tried to push Chemo again and again Becky politely declined with the comment.... "That's our last resort." I suspect our anti-chemo attitude is ticking him off a little bit. While there is absolutely no way of knowing for certain..... there is a possibility that he could get some sort of kick-back from the drug companies for that type of therapy. That or the mark up just just so damn high that having a patient *not* taking it is a substantial pay cut.

Even with our continuing refusal of the Chemo he did tell us that the masses seem to be getting smaller. Our unspoken question was "Well... if the masses are getting smaller without the Chemo..... why would we want to start that protocol?" Also the ulcerations on her breast have begun to heal. Becky isn't sure if that's a good thing or not. She always felt they were something of a drain for stuff to escape. Nothing nasty ever did, however, so I view the healing over as yet another positive sign of our alternative progress.

Weight wise she is down to about 165 right now. Considering that when we met she was pushing 240 that's a considerable drop. Her dietary habits have changed some since then too and that's the most likely reason. She no longer guzzles 6 to 12 diet Cokes a day! (A shock to those of you who knew her back then I know) She's kicked a lot of the "bad food" habits and is eating more frequent, smaller healthier meals instead. Her joints, for the most part, bother her a lot less now. She still has to deal with a touch of bursitis in her left shoulder and hip joint though. If she could just keep from doing things to strain or injure those joints she'd be a lot better off.

Otherwise the only notable development was the sudden appearance of a painful red rash on her left side below her breast and around her side to just about half way to her spine. A steroid injection and some topical ointment seem to have taken the pain out of that and it's slowly fading away. She is still able to work every day and that is important to her mental health. She is simply not the sort of person who can sit around and do nothing.

On our visit to the local Dr. about the rash we had him address her painful urination issue. Come to find out she had a substantial urinary tract infection going on. A few days and several antibiotic pills later and she is happy to report the pain there is going away. That and the reduction in the rash both please me greatly because I sincerely hate to see and hear my Sweetheart in pain.

For now, however, we are continuing with mostly alternative therapy and it seems to be showing positive results. The Arimadex is our only nod towards conventional medicine here. As I explained previously it is an estrogen inhibitor and her particular cancer is estrogen receptive. Naturally we wish to deprive that cancer of as much support as we possibly can.... so she takes one Arimadex pill a day.

Beyond that there are items to stimulate her immune system and keep her liver functioning as well as possible. Additionally she takes Laetrile orally as well as using Oleander in a capsule form. The final weapon in our fight is the DCA powder which I put into capsules so she can take that too. Thus we are attacking the cancer on four different fronts with four different weapons. To date that seems to be working as well as can be expected.

As previously stated..... she didn't develop the cancer over night and it's not going to go away over night either. From a mainstream medical perspective she's already been cured. She was aware of the cancer 6 or 7 years ago and is still alive today..... doing better all the time too! Statistically once you know you have cancer and are still alive five years later..... you are considered cured. I guess that's because it takes Chemo and radiation five and a half to six years to kill you...... so they picked the safer number of five years as the official "cure" point. We do what we can each and every day and pray for the best.

Y'all take care of each other out there...... and remember to VOTE tomorrow!!! It's the only time you have to make your voice heard..... don't waste it.

For my opinions on things political try: http://moveondotblog.blogspot.com
Word of caution.... put on your thick skin and fasten your seat belt!

#19 Test results in her own words

We had the scans done last Wednesday. Becky was up in the air about them but ultimately it was a common sense decision to do them. With the sale of her company clearing the final hurdles the state of her health insurance is a question without an answer. Therefore we elected to proceed with the scans while we still have good coverage. Her blood tests cost $1350. The CAT scan and bone scans run roughly 10 times that much. Tough "pocket change" to come up with.

Anyway.... we got the results from the Dr. on Monday, the 27th, and here, in her own words, are Becky's thoughts on those results. Since this is a letter to a dear friend it will be edited slightly but not changed in content.

...........................................................................................................................................................................

Went to the oncologist today to get the results of the scans they did last week. I almost didn't have them done because I really feel like the radiation does more harm than the benefit from the info they get from them, but if I do lose my job there's no way we could afford them without insurance so I went ahead.

The CT scan showed no increased activity in the lungs, the spots that were there last year still are and about the same size, so I conclude no worries there. Absolutely no indication of mets to the liver, bladder, pancreas or stomach. The main breast mass is now actually a bunch of different smaller masses but he couldn’t answer our question as to which ones are actually active and which might be mostly dead tissue, except he said the “really black places indicate little or no blood supply” which to me says “dead”.

The bone scan showed about the same size and location of the T4/T5 vertebrae and ribs but there is now a lesion showing up on the T8. Also a lot of dye showed in the left shoulder and left hip which he reads as cancer. But those were the places I had treated this summer for bursitis and I think it may be the scar tissue from that picking up the dye. Also something in the right hip…but cancer? Don’t know.

He’s wanting to do more aggressive chemo and then radiation. Well, this is where I parted ways with the last doctor who said I wouldn’t live six months without that treatment and hmmmm, guess what?...that was almost a year ago and things don’t look much different. Still have breast cancer with bone mets, but unlike her dire prediction, my lungs and liver are NOT involved and I just don’t see the benefit of wrecking my immune system (basically for them to collect $12,000 a treatment for the chemo and who knows how much for the radiation?).

So, we have to weigh whatever possible advantages there might be to shrink the remaining breast mass with chemo then blast what’s left after surgery with radiation versus doing something I believe in and that will keep the rest of my body relatively healthy. The Dr.’s comfortable with what he knows and my basic point of view hasn’t moved much so Joe may be stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea on this one. I really think if he’d been with me with either of my parents there’d be no question.

For now, we’re going to continue the program we’ve been on the last 3 months since there is definitely nothing of a critical nature to deal with right now and we are seeing improvement.
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While that devil thing might be a bit scary..... I'm pretty darn comfortable in the deep blue sea so it's only half scary. While there have been many gains in cancer treatment since the struggle of her parents it's *still* the same big three. Poison, cut and burn. And there is a great deal to be said for the famous "placebo effect" too.

To used Becky's own words: "So, we have to weigh whatever possible advantages there might be to shrink the remaining breast mass with chemo then blast what's left after surgery with radiation versus doing something I believe in that will keep the rest of my body relatively healthy."

[emphasis added]

It matters little how effective any therapy is if the person receiving it has no faith in it's effectiveness. Conversely even in highly controlled medical studies a sugar pill often gives the same or better results than the test medication. If the person taking the treatment *believes* in the treatment then the odds of a successful outcome improve greatly.

For example..... my first wife had twisted her ankle and was in considerable pain. The V.A. had prescribed some rather powerful pain pills for me so I figured giving her one would be okay. Got to the medicine cabinet and discovered that I'd used them all. I finally found a regular unmarked aspirin and took that to her with a glass of water. I cautioned that it was a *very* powerful pain killer and that I was supposed to take 2..... but since she was much smaller than me 1 should do the job. She took the pill and lay down. 15 minutes later she was sound asleep and when she woke up 4 hours later said it barely hurt at all. She *believed* that I was trying to take care of her and *that* mattered more than anything she took.

This is the case here as well. Because there is only anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of any of the alternatives we're using we can't point to clinical studies and trials or study definitive empirical evidence of effectiveness. SO based upon what people say about method X or therapy Y we form an opinion or a belief in the efficacy of the treatment. And once we form a belief that something *will* work for us then we dramatically increase the likelihood that it will. This belief component is actually a benefit to therapy that too many doctors of all stripe fail to put to full utilization.

Becky is improving and that's obvious even without the scans. She's typically upbeat and positive, has a great appetite, and is enjoying life day at a time. Her weight is down to about 172 due, in part, to dietary changes and a healthier life style. She looks great! (Something I tell her several times a day too!) As long as she's happy, positive and actively fighting the cancer then her wishes and desires lead the way. Marriage is a two way street..... and right now it's my job to support her any way I can.

Y'all take care of each other out there........