Could Iodine Kill Cancer Cells?

Iodine

At the Cancer Control Society meetings I have attended the last couple of years iodine deficiency was discussed by doctors. In his book entitled “Iodine, Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It”, 4^th Edition, the author, David Brownstein M.D. provides some very interesting information and facts about how he has used iodine and associated nutrients in his medical practice to treat many of the health conditions listed at the end of this blog post.

Why Are So Many People Deficient in Iodine?

Bromide/bromine, fluoride, and chloride/chlorine bind to the iodine receptor sites preventing our cells from receiving iodine.  Bromine is used in bakery products. Refined salt is also not a good source of iodine.  Healthy sources of salt are available. Iodine is found in every cell in the body and is needed in the production of all of the other hormones our bodies produce. Even if adequate amounts of iodine are consumed, the human body has to have a functional delivery system to be able to deliver the iodine to the necessary areas of the body. This delivery system can be another problem area which he discusses and explains certain treatments he has used to solve problems in this area.

Where in the Body Is Iodine Needed?

Iodine can be used in treating a wide range of health conditions.  Iodine is concentrated in the glandular system.  The thyroid gland has the highest concentration of iodine but other areas of the body that have high concentrations of iodine or iodide include the prostate, salivary glands, the cerebral spinal fluid, the brain, the gastric mucosa, the breasts, ovaries, the skin, kidneys, spleen, liver, blood,  intestines, and eyes. For example, bromine mentioned above can bind to iodine receptors in the breast, is a known carcinogen to the breast, and it interferes with iodine utilization in the thyroid gland.

Apoptosis

Iodine has been shown to induce apoptosis in breast and thyroid cancer cells. Apoptosis means that cancer cells do not continue to divide out of control but instead are caused to go through the normal cell life cycle then die as other normal healthy cells would do. Iodine has also been shown to be extremely effective in treating and preventing fibrocystic breast disease. The subject of apoptosis is a very interesting area of discussion in his book.

Japan

Average mainland Japanese people consume more than 100 times the amount of iodine than is included in the U.S. recommended daily allowance. Most Americans probably don’t consume even the recommended daily allowance; therefore most Americans are grossly deficient in this aspect of their nutrition. The author states that he feels it is impossible to have a balanced hormonal system without adequate iodine consumption. Sufficient amounts of iodine have been shown to remove toxic levels of certain chemicals from the human body such as mercury and other heavy metals as well as the chemicals mentioned at the beginning of this article.

Thyroid Gland

The thyroid gland which is dependent upon iodine acts as the body’s major metabolic regulator. If the thyroid gland is not operating properly, a long list of health conditions can result. Many people who have been treated for iodine deficiency have reported correction of rapid heartbeat, slow heartbeat, brain fog, low energy and many other conditions. The author believes that the areas of the body where iodine is concentrated seem to be some of the areas where there is currently the highest frequency of cancer occurrence. Because there are many other nutrients that the body requires in order to utilize iodine it is necessary to consider his advice about the many other areas of nutrition he discusses. The author feels that there are a number of very serious health conditions in children both born and unborn caused by inadequate iodine. He even states that he has seen many psychiatric issues resolved when iodine deficiency is corrected.

Here are some conditions that can be symptoms of improper thyroid function:

Depression

High cholesterol

Essential hypertension

Fatigue

Inability to concentrate

Infertility

Menstrual Irregularities

Nervousness

Poor memory

Slower heartbeat

Weight gain

ADHD

Atherosclerosis

Fibrocystic breasts

Goiter

Hemorrhoids

Headaches

Hypertension

Infections

Liver diseases

Ovarian disease

Prostate disorders

Thyroid disorders

Vaginal Infections

In conclusion, it appears that iodine considerations could provide very promising solutions to certain cancers as well as many other troubling and serious health issues. He recommends that people should consult a licensed practicing physician to determine if their body is receiving and using properly an adequate supply of iodine.

Dr Brownstein’s website is www.drbrownstein.com. He is the Medical Director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, Michigan. He has also authored the following books:

Overcoming Thyroid Disorders

Drugs That Don’t Work And Natural Therapies That Do

The Miracle Of Natural Hormones

Salt Your Way To Health

Overcoming Arthritis

The Guide To Healthy Eating

The Guide To A Gluten Free Diet

The book summarized above was published by Medical Alternatives Press, 4173 Field Brook, West Bloomfield, Michigan 48323, telephone number 888–647–5616.

http://iodine4health.com/research/blaylock_2007_iodine_deficiency.mp3

http://iodine4health.com/basic/iodinegroup.htm

The statements contained herein have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The above information is intended for educational purposes only. This information is not intended to be used to diagnose, prescribe, or replace proper medical care. The information described herein is not intended to treat, cure, diagnose, mitigate, or prevent any disease. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for the diagnosis, treatment and advice of a qualified, licensed medical professional.

Breast Thermography - The Mammography Alternative?

Breast Thermography - The Mammography Alternative?
by Moshe Dekel, MD • Oceanside, NY

If you ask ten women, or men, if they are familiar with Breast Thermography, nine would say no. This is a surprising fact, since medical thermography has been in use since the early 1970’s and the modality was approved by the FDA in 1982 for breast cancer detection and risk assessment, as an adjunct to mammography.

The reason why so few people know about Breast Thermography is because the medical establishment, the American Cancer Society and most women’s organizations are still very comfortable recommending Mammography. The difference between the two modalities is profound. Mammography, like MRI and sonography, is an anatomical study; it looks at anatomical changes of the breast. It may take up to ten years for the tumor to grow to a sufficient size to be detectable by either a mammogram or a physical examination. By that time, the tumor has achieved more than 25 doublings of the malignant cell colony and may have already metastasized.

Thermography is a physiological study. The infrared camera detects the heat (infrared radiation), which is emitted by the breast without physical contact with it (no compression) and without sending any signal (no radiation). This is a receiving mode only. It shows small, unilateral temperature increases, which are caused by an increased blood supply to cancer cells. Cancer cells have an ability to create new blood vessels to the effected area (neoangiogenesis) in order to satisfy the increased demand for nutrients resulting from the higher rate of growth and metabolic demands of the new colony. It was found that even a few thousand cancer cells (early stage of the disease) secrete Nitric Oxide; a powerful vasodilator, in order to achieve the same results.

Physiological changes can precede anatomical mammographic detection by seven to ten years, therefore, allowing us to react early in a preventative mode that may stop the development of overt cancer. The study is interpreted with the help of computer analysis of the 75,000 temperature pixels displayed in each of the 18 digital images that are taken in each study. The study can be interpreted as normal, low moderate or higher risk. A holistic protocol is then implemented in order to prevent the formation of overt cancer.

One of the major limitations of mammography is its inability to diagnose cancer in the case of dense breast. I am sure that some readers will identify with the inconclusive reading of their mammography and their “invitation” to take another one in six months. The patient may or may not know that the density of the breast will not change in that period of time.

For more than two decades, the medical establishment, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the media have promoted Mammography as the main screening procedure for breast cancer. The current recommendation is to have a base line Mammography at the age of forty and for women with family history of breast cancer to start as early as age thirty.

In September 2000, a large, long-term Canadian study found that an annual mammogram was no more effective in preventing deaths from breast cancer than periodic physical examinations for women in their 50’s. Half of the almost 40,000 women ages 50 to 59 received periodic breast examinations alone and half received breast examinations plus mammograms. All learned to examine their own breasts as well. By 1993, 13 years after the study began; there were 610 cases of invasive breast cancer and 105 deaths in the women who received only breast examinations, compared with 622 invasive breast cancers and 107 deaths in those who received breast examinations and mammograms.

Alternative Medicine has maintained for years that mammograms do far more harm than good. Their ionizing radiation mutates cells, and the mechanical pressure on the breast can spread cells that are already malignant (as can biopsies). In 1995, the British medical journal, The Lancet, reported that since mammographic screening was introduced in 1970’s, the incidence of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which represents 12% of all breast cancer cases, had increased by 328% and that 200% of this increase was due to the use of mammography. Since the inception of widespread mammographic screening, the increase for DCIS in women under the age of 40 has risen over 3000%.

Eighty percent of the million breast biopsies performed each year in the US, because of a suspicious mammography, are negative. Why, then, does mainstream medicine keep recommending mammograms? A $100 mammogram for all 62 million U.S. women over 40, and a $1,000+ biopsy for 1- to 2-million women, is an $8 billion per year industry.

Mammography cannot detect a tumor until after it has been growing for years and reaches a certain size. Thermography can detect the possibility of breast cancer much earlier, because it can image the early stages of increased blood supply to cancer cells, which is a necessary step before they can grow into a detectable size tumor.

Breast Thermography is not promoted here as a replacement for mammography, but rather to inform women about their options regarding the prevention of breast cancer.

In private practice for twenty-five years, Dr. Dekel is a Board Certified MD, in OB-GYN and Breast Thermography. He was an assistant clinical professor at Stony Brook Medical Center and served as the Chief of GYN surgery at the Long Island Surgi-Center. Dr. Dekel transitioned to holistic/ integrative medicine six years ago and focuses on prevention, bio-identical hormone replacement for men and women, and breast Thermography. www.drdekel.com.

This article was reprinted from http://www.creationsmagazine.com/articles/C113/Dekel.html

Reprinted with permission from the April/May 2007 issue of Creations Magazine

www.creationsmagazine.com

The statements contained herein have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The above information is intended for educational purposes only. This information is not intended to be used to diagnose, prescribe, or replace proper medical care or advice provided by a qualified licensed medical professional. The information described herein is not intended to treat, cure, diagnose, mitigate, or prevent any disease.

Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M.D., Neurosurgeon

Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M.D., Neurosurgeon, Johns Hopkins University Hospital

Thanksgiving

Since our Thanksgiving holiday is almost here and I think of the many things I have to be thankful for, at the top of the list is a man whose giftedness in his profession is only exceeded by his humility and his concern for those under his care and others who have fallen victim to cancer. I refer to the neurosurgeon who saved our son’s life 4 times. He goes by the name, Dr Q. 

Why?

He completed 4 brain surgeries on our son to remove high grade brain tumor. While some surgeons could do that without losing their patient, Dr Q did it without causing any side effects. After the last resection of tumor, 8 radiation oncologists reviewed post operative MRI scans of the tumor site and expressed the opinion that they’d never seen surgical results displaying such a  high level of skill. When we first met Dr Q we didn’t yet know some of his impressive background. He is a graduate of Harvard medical school with honors and at the top of his class and on occasion teaches there as well as speaking and teaching doctors elsewhere and outside the U.S. He is the director of the tumor program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. If he is out of the country, he still stays in touch with the status of his patients and makes arrangements for any necessary care they may need. This is in contrast to our local neurosurgeon’s group at home in Atlanta who chose not to come in to the emergency room the night our son needed to be seen for a very dangerous situation that had arisen. They were supposed to be on call but didn’t find it important enough to even determine how extremely dangerous the situation was.

How dedicated is he?

When we first met him we immediately found him to be very encouraging, positive, and confident. We knew we had been blessed with a truly exceptional human being who let our son know that he would take care of his brain cancer. Dr Q has proven his dedication to his patients every step of the way as far as we’re concerned. Above and beyond all that, he even oversees his own brain tumor research staff.

Johns Hopkins University Hospital

Besides being the number one rated American hospital for many types of cancer and other diseases, the people who work in this hospital provide a level of care, respect, and concern for their patients we will never forget. So, if you ever need a neurosurgeon, what list of qualities would be important to you when determining whom you would choose to save your life or the life of a member of your family? Surgical errors in other parts of the body can often be corrected. The brain isn’t necessarily that tolerant, so we wanted someone who does brain surgery every day. Besides clinic day Dr Q is in surgery on average more than once per day. Does that mean he does surgery whenever possible? It does not. We know, because one of our surgeries had to be rescheduled just before entering the operating room due to an unsafe degree of blood thinness caused by our son’s diet.

Dr Q

So Dr Q, if you ever happen to read this, keep up the good work. You're fantastic! We couldn’t have asked for a finer surgeon, a more dedicated professional or more decent human being than you. We thank God Mexico gave you to us.

So much has been written about him which you will see if you google his name. Here are some links:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/specialty_areas/brain_tumor/profiles/team_member_profile/36A35BDE9B71CB08318C8F419FD7ACB4/Alfredo_Quinones-Hinojosa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU-gTNZ6g8E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfcSuN6k-oc

Cancer Control Society

Cancer Control Society (CCS)

The Birth of the Place Where You Will Find Hope

Cecile Hoffman, a school teacher in San Diego CA, had had a radical mastectomy and was told that all her cancer had been eliminated. The cancer then spread to her female organs resulting in further surgery. Then the cancer continued to spread into her pelvis, spine, and ribs. She was told that there was no treatment that could help her and was told that she only had months to live. She then made her final arrangements.  However, she learned that she could be treated with Laetrile in Canada so went there to begin treatment. She returned to San Diego, but was told by her doctor that he could not treat her with Laetrile. However, she found she could continue her Laetrile treatments in Mexico and did so at a cancer clinic in Tijuana Mexico across the border from San Diego, CA. By March 1964 x-rays showed the cancer was gone. As a result of her cancer experience she organized the International Society of Cancer Victims and Friends. The Los Angeles chapter became the largest chapter of the organization and later, in 1973, the Cancer Control Society was formed out of that chapter to provide information about alternative and complementary cancer therapies. Sadly, due to changes in Cecile’s personal life she had lost the desire to continue taking Laetrile and passed away in 1969.

CCS Annual Convention – INSPIRING!

Today one of the most important ways CCS serves cancer victims and cancer medical providers is to sponsor an annual convention where professionals from all over the world come to explain the various ways they are treating cancer with alternative and complementary therapies as well as any conventional treatments they use. During the convention many informative books are available as well as representatives of nutritional products most of which are associated with cancer control, prevention, and care. When the annual convention ends, a bus tour of some of the Tijuana Mexico cancer clinics is available where one can meet the doctors and learn what therapies are available and tour the cancer clinic facilities.

CCS Will Change Your Life

At the convention doctors and a few other professionals speak on the half hour over the 3 days of the convention. One of the highlights of the 3 day meeting is the hour devoted to cancer survivors telling their survival stories. Since I have attended the convention for each of  the last 3 years, I can personally attest to the fact that if you arrive there with a prognosis giving you little hope, you will change your mind before you leave the convention due to the many wonderful treatments and therapies people find that are simply not commonly known due to barriers that exist in the practice of medicine and the flow of information in the U.S.

So much more information is available from CCS on its website. You can even order recordings of the presentations of past meetings. The office of the Cancer Control Society is located in Los Angeles CA and including the predecessor organization has been educating people about alternative cancer treatments since 1963.

Cancer Control Society
2043 N. Berendo St.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Phone: 323-663-7801  Fax: 323-663-7757

http://www.cancercontrolsociety.com

http://www.adios-cancer.com/
http://cancerbreakthroughusa.com/

Hyperthermia

Hyperthermia

I Just Got Diagnosed With Cancer. What Do I Do Now?

TIME. Many cancer victims would be so much better off if they knew they had some time before they started the most extreme cancer treatments. When I recall how we felt after getting my son’s terminal diagnosis I wish I could have known about the many alternative methods people have been using for many years. Instead I felt panic and that we needed to do something immediately. It would have helped to dispel the intense fear that gripped me. Since we have met many cancer patients since getting my son’s diagnosis, I feel that many people have some time to try at least one alternative method before they begin the treatments dictated by the standard of care of conventional medicine. Many of the alternative treatments would strengthen the patient’s body and make the standard of care treatments more successful and less harmful if it was felt that surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy was necessary.

Buy Time

It seems to me that in many cases if a cancer victim wants to try to avoid surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, hyperthermia would be a good technique to at least stabilize the cancer growth if not kill it immediately. If it succeeds, the results may be apparent soon enough to give the confidence necessary that additional time is now available. This would provide an opportunity to watch for recurrences, and if finances are available, start a regimen like PolyMVA or some other appropriate alternative. Why not avoid or delay surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy if you can if you have a good reason? Just because you have a cancer diagnosis doesn’t mean you have to assume you won’t have any more life or that the rest of your life will be diminished in one or more ways. Refuse to accept anything less than the best for yourself.

What Is Hyperthermia

If you don’t know what hyperthermia is, here is some brief information. It is a technique accidentally discovered many years ago when cancer victims fell sick with other illnesses that caused high fevers. It was found that the high body temperature caused by the high fever could kill cancer cells. Cancer cells and tumors are more sensitive to high temperature than healthy cells are. This method has been used in Europe for many years and is available in the Mexican cancer clinics and is becoming more available in the U.S. In fact, some medical practitioners use it with low dose chemotherapy or other conventional techniques.

Websites With Hyperthermia Information 

National Cancer Institute

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Therapy/hyperthermia

University of Texas/ Memorial Hermann Hospital       
 http://www.uth.tmc.edu/thermaltherapy/

Society for Thermal Medicine    
 http://www.thermaltherapy.org/ECOMSFTM/timssnet/drupal/

In the Society for Thermal Medicine web site click on the “Links” on the left hand side of the page.  The above web sites may serve as a starting point for you. Hyperthermia treatment is available at clinics in Europe, Mexico, and other countries.

Do You Have Experience with Hyperthermia?

If you have experience with hyperthermia, would you let us know your thoughts? If it was helpful, please let us know where you received it, so others can save some time in their research before they launch into their chosen course of action.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Can You Be a Brain Cancer Survivor?

The Dreaded News You Don’t Want to Ever Get

I am the father of a brain cancer survivor. Unknown to my son, my wife, and me our experience with brain cancer was to start in late 2008 when our 27 year old son said he was having headaches thinking it was a sinus condition. By December 2008 his headaches were so severe that he couldn’t get out of bed. He had just started his university teaching career and thankfully was able to complete his first semester of teaching even with much concern about his health. By mid December 2008 the headaches were so severe that when he telephoned us from Philadelphia we advised him to go immediately to an emergency room. He lived close enough to the hospital that he chose to walk there. Can you imagine your child or yourself walking to the emergency room at night in a major city down town with a large brain tumor?

Good News and Bad News

The BAD news is that our son was eventually to have 3 brain cancer removal surgeries, 6 weeks of radiation, and a year of chemotherapy with the prognosis of surviving one and one half years. The GOOD news is that he is back to excellent health, has had clean MRI’s since his last surgery, and is now close to 3 years beyond the date his tumor was found. If you’d like to find out what we did that we think has prevented the return of more cancer, please read on.

The Hospital Emergency Room

So to continue our story, the hospital emergency room CT scan showed a large left frontal lobe tumor. He called my wife and me at our home in Georgia to tell us they had just diagnosed a large brain tumor. Since our son had always had remarkably good health, my wife and I were shocked. It was so unexpected. Then feelings of fear and panic started to grip us because we needed to figure out what we could do to help him but knew nothing about brain cancer. I was 57 years old and had never experienced the depth of fear and panic that sprang up in me at that time. I couldn’t believe that one of my children was diagnosed with such a dreaded disease. My imagination ran wild.

The First of Many MRI Scans

He returned home several days later at the end of December 2008, and we were able to get an MRI done on New Years Eve 2008. We met with a neurosurgeon the next day. He showed us the MRI on his computer and told us our son would need surgery causing us more worry about his future quality of life.

Could Nutrition Alone Cure Him and Kill the Tumor?

Because I had attended a talk 6 months earlier by a man who operated a health institute that specialized in nutrition and raw foods I knew that some people were healed by nutrition only, which I presented to my son. So we were able  to take him there immediately for their 3 week program. He did very well there, and they were very happy with his health except for the tumor. Their oncologist told us he thought our son should have surgery immediately. So we returned home and started to do research urgently. We hoped that the nutrition would kill the tumor. By February 2009 we knew we needed to visit neurosurgeons.

Brain Surgery

His first surgery was on 2/27/2009. He was in surgery for about 6 hours. The wait was very stressful for us. The surgeon had prepared us so that we knew that not everyone wakes up after brain surgery - EVER.  When it was over the surgeon told us surgery went very well and that they were sending the tumor to have it identified. They wanted to be careful to get it right. It took over 2 weeks to get the results. That was a difficult 2 weeks. It was determined to be a grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma and was “very large and measured 7 by 8 centimeters”. This type of tumor sends out “fingers” which make it impossible for a surgeon to know how much of the cancer he was unable to remove. Before surgery the surgeon was concerned that the tumor was too close to the speech center and that he might not be able to remove all the cancerous tissue he’d like to get. This tumor type also makes it difficult for the radiation oncologists to know if they have irradiated the brain in the necessary areas to the necessary degree to reach and kill any cancer cells left by surgery. To add additional worry we were told by one of his doctors that this type of tumor usually returns and would contain some grade 4 cancer cells and be called a glioblastoma which would be the type of tumor U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy was found to have several months earlier. That would be the worst case scenario and actually the one to be expected.

Could Radiation and Chemotherapy Be Avoided?

We still wanted to avoid radiation and chemotherapy so some time passed as our son tried to use really good nutrition, but the tumor returned, so a second surgery was done in August 2009. We continued our research and found a doctor who used a protocol that was somewhat successful for brain tumors so we followed it for several months. It was very expensive and it failed. So, our son decided he would complete the remainder of the “standard of care” which was radiation and chemotherapy. Apparently to be eligible for most Food and Drug Administration trials a person must have failed at least 2 of the 3 parts of the standard of care. Our son felt that if he completed all of the standard of care treatments, he would be most eligible for any FDA trial that he might need if everything else failed. We met with a radiation oncologist in January of 2010 to begin radiation and a MRI was done. The tumor had returned again so he was advised to see his surgeon before beginning radiation because most doctors want as much tumor removed before beginning radiation to achieve the best possible outcome. His 3^rd surgery was done in March 2010. His 30 radiation treatments began in that month and ended in May. His year of chemotherapy (5 days of each month) began in April 2010. He did better than we expected with all his treatments and had very little pain and nausea compared to what we thought he might have.

Finally, HOPE and PolyMVA

Flash back to August 2009 5 ½ months after the original brain cancer diagnosis. I happened to find the PolyMVA survivor’s website, www.polymvasurvivors.com. Before then I had not found any reason to hope for my son’s long term survival. There I contacted the person who had the longest survival from a high grade brain tumor. In all my searching Mark was the only one that I could contact that had a really long term survival from a high grade brain tumor. That gave me some hope finally that our son might have a future. Mark told me that he had been using PolyMVA continuously for the last 12 years following his brain surgery, radiation, and (in his case very little) chemotherapy.

Cancer SURVIVORS and the Cancer Control Society

I didn’t know anything about PolyMVA, but Mark’s main and very urgent advice was that I should attend a meeting that was to take place in 2 weeks over Labor Day weekend in Los Angeles. The group that puts on that meeting every year is called the Cancer Control Society, and they’ve been helping people for about 52 years. Mark, the long term brain tumor survivor, told me in no uncertain terms that if there was any possible way, I must attend that meeting. I went and found there to be many legitimate reasons to believe that my son might survive his disease. It was a 3 day meeting and the majority of the speakers were M.D.’s each speaking for 30 minutes. There were a few authors, researchers, and naturopathic type doctors who spoke but the majority were M.D.’s, and several of them were from overseas and the Mexican cancer clinics. These professionals had been dealing with cancers for many years in many different ways(conventional and integrative), and I felt they had had much better success than the chances of survival my son had been given. My son took all that into account so in the spring of the next year shortly after his chemotherapy began, he started taking PolyMVA.  PolyMVA is a nutritional supplement which is the end result of many attempts to find the best combination of ingredients designed  to improve one's immune system, target cancer cells, and strengthen healthy cells. At the annual Cancer Control Society meetings there is an hour for cancer survivors to speak and tell their stories. Several of the cancer survivors that spoke had used PolyMVA during their course of treatment. They were surviving from cancer! I was stunned.

My Fear and Panic Begin to Subside – No More Cancer?

Our son completed his chemotherapy in April 2011. He is now (as of October 2011) in his 16^th month of using PolyMVA. He has had clean MRI’s showing no tumor since his last surgery in March 2010.  Since March 2010 he has had 3 month MRI’s, then 4 month MRI’s, and his next MRI is scheduled 6 months from the last one. His surgeon apparently now feels confident that the MRI’s can be spaced out at greater intervals. The fear and panic I described earlier has begun to subside, thankfully!

Current Status: How Is My Brain Cancer Victim Doing Now?

Our son has returned to Pennsylvania to “restart” his life after living with us for 2 years. God has been so good to him. He was able to get his teaching job back and even an additional teaching position at another of the Philadelphia universities. He appears to be happier and more motivated than he has ever been about a career and his future. He seems to have more energy than we ever remember, and he no longer seems to “sweat the small stuff” as much as he used to. He has regained all the muscle mass he had lost during the 2 years of his conventional medical treatments and more. He really looks better than he did before his diagnosis. He even regained all his hair lost from the radiation. When he returned to Johns Hopkins University Hospital for an MRI some time after the radiation was over, his surgical team was a little upset because they thought he still hadn’t followed their advice to have radiation. They were amazed that even after full radiation treatments, all his hair had returned! Considering all that he has had to live through, we are amazed at how his life has been affected by this terrible disease. He was given 1 ½ years to live. I am writing this in October 2011. If you measure from December 2008, the date of his original diagnosis, he has outlived his prognosis by quite a bit, and his signs of good health are on a trend line of constant improvement without any indication of further tumor growth. Thank you God for his recovery so far. He has no significant physical impairments or neurological deficits caused by the cancer! However, he wanted me to make it clear that he thinks he has an occasional aura related to 2 mild seizures he had between his surgeries and also feels like he has some minor short term memory loss that he didn't notice until after radiation treatments. Most importantly, I must give credit to Whom it’s due because at every critical point along the way there is no other explanation for our wonderful outcome except that God led us to information and people that allowed us to make the right decisions. We certainly didn’t know what to do!

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Are you or a friend or loved one dealing with cancer? Do you know someone who is controlling or has beaten their cancer? Please post your story or questions so that others who find or follow this blog can benefit from your knowledge or experience. You can post your message or questions by clicking the word "comments" below this line.

PolyMVA websites
 

http://www.polymvasurvivors.com

http://www.polymva4patients.com

http://www.polymva.com/