God Continues to Guide Our Way

We have met with three doctors at the clinic and Harold has had an salacinium IV treatment every day this week. All three of the doctors are very good and very integrative with their medical procedures.

Yesterday there was a lady in for a follow-up treatment that had an inoperable brain tumor. Her tumor has disappeared and she looks as healthy as I am. This was very encouraging. Also the week before we got here there was a doctor from Texas and his wife who was also a doctor taking this treatment.

We will not be taking treatments on the weekends, but will be taking the salicinium orally. It is going to snow in the mountains this weekend so we won’t be able to take a trip to Sonoma Valley or Tahoe like we wanted, because Donner Pass will be closed...that just takes us the the inevitable conclusion most of you already know...We will probably go to some movies and play a little poker (hey, it has paid for our going-out meals so far, can't complain!).

Papa Harold is Trippin'...Careful, Watch Your Step!

Message Written by Sonja:

We left home on Friday, January 16 and drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico the first day. We spent the night at a Ramada Inn. We always pack a small bag if we are travelling for several days with a couple of changes of clothes so we don’t have to take in all the big bags. We had packed to be gone for four weeks with clothes, all of Harold’s supplements, an ice chest with food and dishes, an electric skillet, crock pot and Panini maker.

We parked about 100 feet from the office under a light. When we got ready to leave on Saturday we found that someone had broken out the back glass of the SUV and stolen EVERYTHING we had taken with us. I had taken the computer in with us, so we had it and our toiletries and a change of clothes and they got everything else.

I was pretty devastated and had a meltdown, but got over it. The officer that investigated told that anywhere in New Mexico they will break out a window for a candy bar laying on the seat. Would have been nice to know that ahead of time. It was a lesson hard learned.

We had to complete the next two days of the trip with a plastic dripcloth duct taped to over the back window. We had no security at all - imagine how safe you feel leaving your car wide open for another night at a hotel outside of Las Vegas - God was watching over us though as we went without incident on night 2.

We made arrangements to get the glass replaced at the dealer in Reno. Unfortunately, the glass is special order so we had to wait for three days for the insurance adjuster to go to the dealer and write up the estimate. I finally got a call last night that he had been there yesterday and the car should be fixed no later than Tuesday of next week. We have had a rental car for several days waiting; needless to say, it was an interesting start to an already emotional journey.

Finding Our Way

Mom and dad went for dad's monthly check-up at Cancer Treatment Center in Tulsa from November 2008 through January 2009 and Papa Harold’s CEA (the marker for tumor activity in the blood) had been doubling. From December to January, his levels had went from 27 to 56 and the CT scan confirmed the tumors in his lungs and liver had doubled in size in a month - we were hoping that it was due to the IVC treatments killing the cancer cells causing his elevations but the scan proved that to be wrong.

Dr. Ketterl, his oncologist, want told them she wanted to do chemo (the same regimen he took in 2004 that did not have any affect on his cancer).

During October when mom and dad were visiting Ryan, Julie and Peyton in Indianapolis they had an IVC (intravenous Vitamin C) treatment with a Naturopathic Doctor that told them about a blood test that a German lab was doing that would test your blood for specific chemo and natural substances that would likely work best on your specific tumors.

Mom immediately began searching for the lab and a clinic in Germany that used the test. In the search, she found that a doctor in Reno, Nevada used the German blood test and additionally used a substance called Salicinium that has had great results on some other cancer patients. Mom contacted the clinic (it took several tries to get ahold of them) and set up an appointment for dad to go through the series of Salicinium treatments. It is a three week regimen that they wanted to begin immediately (in fact they set off on their journey last Friday, January 16 to drive the 24+ hours to the treatment center) so the doctor could start on Monday. After the 3 weeks of treatments, they will journey back home for two months and take the Salicinium orally and then come back to Reno again for a one week follow-up with the IV treatments...

On with the journey!