When the rubber meets the road

We went to see Dr. Haverokos at UC Health Ashutz Campus yesterday morning. I was nervous because he has been very clear in the past that "people don't wait with this diagnosis," and "you'll be worse next time I see you." He's a very likable person so it's been easy to give him a pass on these kind of messages. After all, he believes them, I'm sure, so who can fault him.  Yesterday he was wearing a mask, which led us to a discussion that he and his wife are expecting their first and only child. It was fun to celebrate exciting news with him.  After all the greetings, he started to tell us that he has been running an ongoing clinical trial, investigating a pair of drugs that seem to be well tolerated - better tolerated than the other HDAC inhibitors I've tried. (Like Belinostat and Romedepsin). The two drugs use what they call a "Kick and Kill Strategy," whereby an antiviral medication goes after the Epstein Barr Virus in the tumor, a...

What a ride it was to get to the consult with Dr. Williams. The Patient Consultant, while very nice and professional, is not a nuanced person but a technician whose job is to collect labs and scans and documents to prepare patients to meet with Dr. Williams of the Williams Cancer Institute. I heard of this place in Cabo San Lucas from my dear friend I met 7 years ago at the Cancer Center for Healing in Irvine. She said she has met people there who are going to this place in Mexico for treatment with good results.  His book, the Immunotherapy Revolution, is available on audiobook for free on YouTube. The first chapter is found at : https://youtu.be/HsowoDUBwf4?si=KRN4gELgajTGaSAE . There are 7 chapters and I highly recommend people listen to it before they have to make decisions on cancer treatment. I've lost friends I've met on this journey - friends who have been much more disciplined than I - and I wish they had some of this information either as or before they turned to the ...

I'm sitting here not knowing where to start. I usually have some idea of what I want to say here. I usually have something specific I want to document.  Tomorrow I have a consultation with Dr. Williams from Williams Cancer Institute in Cabo San Lucas. He also has an office in Santa Monica, but most treatment happens in Mexico. His book is called the Immunotherapy Revolution and is available as an audio book free on YouTube. Here is Chapter 1. https://youtu.be/HsowoDUBwf4?si=Egsy4YjjFI7iFa03. You can look up the following 6 chapters on YouTube as well. It is so important that people realize that breakthroughs happen and are even reported in good, reputable peer reviewed journals, but they won't be available to patients in the oncologist offices for about a decade. That is documented in the main-stream literature. Unfortunately, to go out of the country to get to some of these options, it's cash only and very expensive. But...sometimes it's what you have to do.  I have no...