Perspective from The New England Journal of Medicine — The Doctor’s Oldest Tool
www.nejm.org
Great article.
When I was diagnosed with cancer I was inundated with all of the cancer cures everyone just knew were flying under the medical establishment's radar, or were being actively suppressed by the pharmaceutical companies. I was sent samples of Laetrile by a friend of mine. Another recommended high-calcium supplemental diet as it was supposed to change the PH of the body, making it more alkaline, which would kill the cancer cells naturally. They all had their reasons and zealous, almost evangelical supporters. Some of it kind of made sense. The alkaline part was not strange as a lot of chemo drugs are more alkaline. I was highly skeptical so we proceeded of course with traditional medicine initially.
After my first chemo treatment, which consisted of a heavy dose of cisplatin along with an IV push of adriamycin, I was completely floored for nearly two weeks. I felt like death. It affected my hearing, some of which persists to this day, I felt like I had been run over by a truck, even my hair hurt, I was vomiting with regularity despite anti-emetics, and it deeply affected my psyche and even my cognition, both of which would end up being long-term chronic conditions.
After a week of as close to hell as I could imagine on earth, these alternatives started to sound really enticing.
I reached out to my friend pushing the what is now called "alkaline water treatment" and they gave me some samples. My wife and I discussed in earnest the pros and cons of changing up my treatment. She was taking it seriously because watching my transformation under just that one treatment scared her to death, shook her to her core, she told me afterward. We had heard the stories. Some guy had a nearly all-carrot diet that supposedly cured his terminal pancreatic cancer. Another used combinations of things to get past it without chemo. We then spoke to my doctor, who I was lucky was not just the single most intelligent human I had ever met, he was also very compassionate and focused on his patients. He walked us through the alternatives. spoke to them intelligently as if he had actually studied these things, and he did not immediately just brush it all aside. In the end, he said he could not guarantee the chemo would work - they had given me less than 15% chance of survival at the outset - but he said his educated opinion was to continue with the chemo. He also said he would still treat me as much as he could even if I chose an alternative route, mainly because no matter what I was looking at surgery at some point. We decided to trust him and continued with the chemo.
In the end, the initial neoadjuvant chemo, was deemed a failure. Less than 10% necrosis, where anything less than 90% was viewed as not very effective. My chemo after my resection surgery was nearly devastating as it lead to my actually dying twice after a bad bout of chemo my body could not metabolize developed into severe pneumonia, and took weeks in ICU to recover. In the end I do not know how much the chemo contributed to my survival, there is really no way to tell. I attribute my survival mostly to the expert surgery team I had (the heads of several surgical groups at the University of Utah participated) as well as proton therapy at Loma Linda University Medical Center. But I am very glad I trusted my doctor and continued with the therapy he recommended, even if it did have far-reaching effects on my life ever since, because there was such a good chance I would not have survived if I had tried some other alternative treatment.
But in the end it is all based on trust. That is all we have to go on. Same with the vaccines and other mitigation techniques we are told to participate in. We can only trust it will work.
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