Cancer and Me

In five days, it will be one year since I got the official diagnosis from my new doctor. What I have on my right ear is skin cancer; specifically, basal cell carcinoma. Of the skin cancers, it is the “best” to get. (That characterization is mine, not something the doctor told me.)

Tomorrow I am to go to the clinic for an IV infusion of SOT developed by RGCC. 🙂 (Yes, yes — I’ll explain further on down.)

But that’s tomorrow. Today, as with every other day for months and months, I changed my diaper morning and evening. My ear diaper, that is. This is what a freshly installed diaper looks like (grayscaled and blurred):

If I showed you photos that reveal what’s under the cotton, all you would see is raw tissue. In my view, it looks awful. (I figure the top quarter inch or so of my ear is gone.)

But the SOT treatment is custom designed to kill the cancer. I have hopes (high, yet restrained) that it will do just that. Oh, I don’t expect to have my ear fully restored, but I would be so happy to have it fully healed.

OK, I should tell you about SOT and RGCC. But first I’ll mention some stuff I did first, but only a brief summary of some highlights.

I took stuff orally — turmeric, ubiquinol, and black salve. And Juice Plus+. (And two weeks or so before having my first SOT, we added quercetin.)

I also used frankincense oil topically, most of the time mixed into homemade complete tissue salve (made with Dr. Christopher’s BF&C With Comfrey).

More “dramatically,” I started receiving mega-dose Vitamin C infusions intravenously (IVC for short). The first IVC was 25,000mg. The next two were 50,000mg. Then I had a few months of weekly 75,000mg infusions. After that, a couple of months of weekly 100,000mg infusions.

Then I stopped those expensive IVs to start trying to rebuild my personal medical fund for RGCC and SOT. God has continued to provide generously in surprising ways. I continue to take that as confirmation I am on the right track.

In late July I went to the clinic for another blood draw. That evening that part of me left Portland International Airport on its way to Research Genetic Cancer Centre International (RGCC, you know) in Greece.

As I understand it, RGCC tests the patient’s blood to isolate the cancer cells. Then they test 20+ chemo drugs and 20+ natural things to determine which are most effective against the patient’s own unique cancer cells.

Among many, many other things, my report shows my CTC (circulating tumor cells — a measure of cancer cells in the blood) is 2.4 — my doctor said everybody is at least a 1. He said he tries to get his cancer patients to 2.4 range, so he is pleased that’s where I am already (likely as a result of all the treatments I had — and our “lots of praying,” he surmised). He wants to get me below 2.

I ended up deciding to go ahead with the SOT (Supportive Oligonucleotide Therapy) — the IV therapy developed at the RGCC lab in Germany. The SOT is supposed to attack only the cancer cells they isolated in the course of testing my blood at the RGCC lab in Greece. Thus the side effects should be limited to those areas where the cancer is active. My doctor said the pain will be greater than it is now, so he will have me on certain prescription pain meds. (He also said it is likely I will have more drainage and bleeding. He said it will be a mess. Great.) He is concerned the inflammation (which is likely to cause my ear to swell) could extend the swelling beyond my ear — and that is why he is concerned about my ear’s proximity to my brain and my neck. (Of course, he had a moral, ethical obligation to include worst case scenarios to help guide my decision making.)

As to how long the worst of those nasty side effects would last, unknown. The only way to know for sure how my particular system will respond is to just do it.

Because of the “unknownness” of this as it pertains to my brain and neck, I have opted to go with the “mild” version of the SOT, which is about 10% less effective than the stronger version. Also, the doctor plans to administer it as two half-doses, 3 weeks apart. When a patient opts for the “mild” version, RGCC recommends that the stronger version be administered 3-6 months later, so that is my tentative plan.

My doctor also said that once the SOT is in my system, there is nothing he can do to reverse its effects — pain, brain, neck — I will just have to tough it out (with medical/pharmaceutical help, of course) for the 3-6 months it is active. And if a certain unrecalled-by-me something happened, he said that I would have to go to the hospital. I think he thinks the odds of complications are relatively low, but I am not even clear about that anymore. 🙄

In early September I authorized my doctor to order my very own SOT.

Tomorrow morning at 10:00 Pacific I am to receive the first half dose via push IV.

I should emphasize yet that this particular SOT is all about my variant/version/whatever of basal cell carcinoma — not all basal cell carcinomas in anyone who has them. The SOT treatment is targeted only and solely at my specific cancer cells, so they aren’t supposed to attack my well cells.

Til all is said and done with these SOT treatments, the doctor said I should end up with “a new ear” or some such “promise.” Maybe so. God knows what He has decided He will do.

At this point, God alone knows whether or not He will use SOT that way. I rest in His power, His love, His wisdom, His plan, and His grace.

If your relationship to God is such that you pray to Him regularly and frequently, please pray for me. Thanks. 🙂

PS: I hope to do a post-infusion blog post.