Update - April 12, 2012
Posted by Patti DiSanto on 4/12/2012
Hi again folks! Just writing with some "new news" on Bruce. Here we are into our third year and Bruce is doing pretty well and "hanging in there." As you might remember, last August (2011), his cholangio came back with a vengeance...really surprised us. It was back in his liver and had spread to his spine and lungs.
Dr. Marks put Bruce immediately back on the Gemzar/Cisplatin that had been so successful in the previous year. Bruce also continued with the following supplements:
- PectaSol-C (Citrus Pectin) 5 grams 2X daily
- AveUltra (Modified Wheat Germ - also known as AveMar) 9 grams 1X daily
- NK-Stim6 (610 mg Arabinogalactan Heartwood/400 mg Olive Leaf Extract) 2X daily
- Super Bio-Curcumin (400 mg Curcuma longa - turmeric) 1X daily
- Mega Silymarin (900 mg Milk Thistle) 1X daily
- CoQ10 (100 mg) 1X daily
- Vitamin D3 (1000 IU) 1X daily
By January of this year, the lungs and spine were clear and the 2 tumors remaining in his liver were very small. They took him off of the chemo for February so that he could have a PET scan at the end of February. The PET scan confirmed the great news and they decided to allow Bruce to remain off of the chemo for March. OF NOTE: Dr. Marks is now thinking that Bruce's supplements &/or diet are making some difference for two reasons. 1.) They did not expect Bruce to "still be here" and call him a "walking miracle" and 2.) He has absolutely NO neuropathy over any of the periods that he has been on the chemo, and this (I surmise) is unheard of.
Bruce had some "not so good" news last week when they did another CAT scan and thought they saw something on his kidney and one of the two tumors on his liver has grown again in size. Bruce had an ultrasound yesterday and it was determined that the "thing" on his kidney is nothing but a cyst :-) and Dr. Marsh is going to ablate the two liver tumors tomorrow. Bruce is ecstatic. So on we go with this battle!
I call this battle a lot like the carnival game, "Whack-A-Mole"....once you pound it down, it pops up somewhere else...but you have to keep pounding to get all those critters down in their holes. ;-)
Hang in there folks! I am hearing a lot of great news lately about breakthrough discoveries....Keep on fighting the good fight!!! I am going to post this link elsewhere on this site, but here is a recent article about a "universal cancer vaccine" (developed in Israel) that is in clinical trial NOW: http://soc.li/0MDgO0O
With love and blessings...
Patti
