Homeward Bound - At Last!

We left the clinic in Reno about 11:30 a.m. on Friday after Harold’s last treatment and visits with Dr. Forsythe and Dr. Magic. Dr. Forsythe told us Harold’s blood work is good as far as his liver and kidney function and red and white cell count are all very good, although, he is still slightly anemic. They gave him an iron shot and Dr. Magic recommended we get B-12 and Folic Acid shots after returning home.

We have a pretty extensive regimen to maintain for the next three months before going back for a one week follow-up of the IV salicinium. Our next trip will be the week of May 4. Harold will be taking an oral version three times daily between now and then along with all his other supplements and oral Poly MVA.

As you might guess, the trip home has also not been without it's own excitement...we had a blowout at about Winslow, Arizona and the tire completely came apart. Luckily, we were not hurt and are thankful for that. We have the spare tire on (full size) and hopefully won’t have any more issues with tires before we get home. We have a road hazard guarantee on the tire, but there are no Tires Plus shops in Arizona or New Mexico. We stayed Saturday night in Gallup, New Mexico, without incident. This put us a bit behind but was our only choice as there was a bad accident involving a semi that had the interstate at a standstill and we had to travel about 27 miles back to Gallup to get out of the traffic.

We got up early on Sunday morning and drove straight through with the exception of gas breaks and a stop in Amarillo, Texas for lunch at a Cracker Barrel. We made it home about 8 p.m. and are ecstatic to finally be home! My beautiful Purple African Violet is in full bloom - just in time for me to enjoy it.

We are now playing catch-up after being gone for three weeks and get all of the insurance stuff in order from the break-in. Harold goes in two weeks back to Tulsa for his CT scan (Dr. Forsythe has told us to tell them to quit doing CT scans once a month as that is too much radiation) and blood work - we will keep you posted on his results.

Getting Close to Going Home

We are getting close to the end of Harold’s three weeks of treatment with Salicinium and immune boosters. We are extremely pleased with all the doctors at the clinic.

We met with a new doctor at the clinic on Wednesday, Dr. Magic (pronounced Ma-Jeek). He is from Russia and originally came to the US in 1991 to practice at Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Tulsa (this is where Harold had his 10 hour surgery with an incredible doctor, Dr. Pierre Greef, MD, FACS - Surgical Oncologist). He left CTCA in 1993 because they were not actually practicing integrative medicine.

He worked with a doctor in Oklahoma City until coming to work in the Reno clinic this month. Dr. Magic is extremely knowledgeable and also very funny. He told us his brother had told him when he came to Oklahoma that he would have to learn to speak "Oklahoman" for which he responded by saying, "they speak English like everyone else."

He went on to tell us about a patient he had told to come back to see him on Monday. Her response was, "Okay, if I don’t kick the bucket before then." His response to her was "Go ahead and kick the bucket, but come in on Monday." She cracked up and his office staff had to explain to him what “kick the bucket” means.

He kept us in stitches with several antidotes he relayed about learning to speak Oklahoman. Another one was when someone told him they felt like a dog. He seriously told them, "I’ve never had a dog so you will have to describe symptoms for me."

On another occasion, a patient told him they felt Hunky Dory and he had to have them explain that one too.

Bottom line was – he said his brother was right – you do have to learn to speak Oklahoman. We had a fun visit with him but also learned a lot.

He has contacted the doctor he worked with in Oklahoma and we will be visiting him when we return to Oklahoma for Ozone treatments. Ozone treatments force oxygen into the cells which helps the cancer cells to commit suicide.

We have learned much during this journey, but there is so much more to learn. We have met many wonderful people battling as we are against many forms of cancer. We have seen many walking miracles during our three-week stay and we will be telling our story to others when we come back for our follow-up treatments.

On a side note, we also got to visit with Mary Worley, a long-time family friend who now lives about 30 minutes outside of Reno in Fernley, Nevada. I worked with Mary at Marilyn Pryor & Associates for many years while I was selling real estate. It took us a while to track her down, finally sending her a letter to a P.O. Box after unsuccessfully trying to navigate to a spot on an online map that led us to a ranch with horses and cats – we knew we had not reached the correct destination since Mary is not a fan of either. It was so great to see her again and we look forward to our trip back to Reno in a couple of months so we can spend more time with her.

Our Weekend in Wine Country

We left the condo about 8:30 Saturday morning and drove to Sonoma Valley. It was 21 degrees at the top of Donner Pass. When we got to Sonoma, it was 68 degrees...a beautiful day. We stopped for lunch at a little French Bistro and ate a salad and turkey sandwich; both were very good.

We spent the night at Dry Creek Inn in Healdsburg. Sunday we spent the day going through wineries and vineyards making our way back to Napa Valley. It is beautiful even though the vines are dormant this time of year. Mustard grows beneath the vines and is in full bloom with yellow blooms. It is very pretty to look out at the vineyards covering the rolling hills in full bloom with yellow flowers. When I get a connection for the camera, I will post some photos we took.

Overall, we had a great weekend and it was a nice break for us.

We had a treatment on Monday and will have one each day this week and will make our trip back home on Friday afternoon. We found out on Friday that the blood work that was done at the clinic on Tuesday when we first got here, two weeks after we had blood work in Tulsa, showed that his CEA (marker in the blood) had gone from 57 when we had it done in Tulsa to 72 in just two weeks time.

The clinic will do blood work again this Wednesday and we will be able to see if the CEA is coming down or at least holding stable from the treatments. I truly believe this treatment will improve Harold’s condition. He is feeling good and looking very good also (although he has never looked like he has a severe case of cancer).

Our journey continues...if you are interested, check out this site related to using hyperthermia to treat cancer - I will continue to post articles that I find in my quest for curing Harold's cancer. Speaking of, I was given an honorary Doctoral Degree from one of Harold's doctors last week; I think they continue to be impressed with my extensive knowledge of the disease (I feel very lucky that there are so many tools that help guide my path to these discoveries - knowledge truly is power!)

Love to all - as always, feel free to post comments by clicking the comments link directly below this blog entry - we truly enjoy hearing from you!