The guinea pig program
Finishing off five weeks of daily radiation, we had been in Hawaii for about
5 months now, it was early May, and it was time to go home. We advertised, my
still little kitten, on the radio and had no problem finding a home for him.
The people we delivered him to gave us tickets to see ‘Don Ho’,
it was a wonderful way to finish off our trip to Hawaii. Not that I liked Don
Ho especially, it was more like closing off a chapter, the knowledge I was going
home. He was so completely Hawaii and it was just the perfect way to end the,
experience.
The specialist we had been dealing with was sending us home with hope. There
had been an aggressive chemotherapy program recently designed specifically for
my type of cancer. As fate, or coincidence would have it, the program turned
out to be from the St.Judes hospital.
The doctors handed me my file as we left the hospital in Hawaii for the last
time. We went home out of the tropical heat to a late May snow in Victoria.
Then over to the Vancouver cancer clinic, this time with an experimental chemotherapy
program to try. I was designated a file number, and sent downstairs to the office
of this new prominent specialist. It was a hole in the ground. Papers everywhere,
file cabinets cluttered every bit of wall space floor to ceiling and again,
no window. I was starting to wonder about this clinic when the doctor walked
in. Compared to the offices in Hawaii, this was hell.
Our new Doctor seemed extremely competent and drew my trust immediately. He
started by stating how surprised he was to see me, whether this meant, ‘still
alive’, or submitting to traditional medical treatment. I explained to
him that I’ve never been against traditional medical advice. I just didn’t
like the options they had had for me a year earlier, and now, with this new
chemotherapy program along with the fact that I was so much more knowledgeable
given my experiences along the journey, I had confidence we could beat this
together. This isn’t to say that I agreed with everything he said, it
was more that I trusted his opinion, and felt comfortable questioning him, if
I felt it was warranted.
He organised out of the original twelve chemotherapy drugs listed in the new
regime, an intensive therapy program including high doses of four of the main
drugs for my regiment. Three, to be injected intravenously, vincristine, methotrexate
and Cyclophosphamide, every two weeks, and the one, methotrexate, to also be
given intrathecally (in the spine) every twenty eight days, as well as hormonal
therapy consisting of prednisone to be taken orally. Bone marrow taps to be
checked every 3 months to keep an eye on the rate of cancer growth there. On
top of this I was prescribed 10 mg. Of Valium as needed, which turned out to
be every 3-4 hours while on the prednisone.