San is a 65-year-old man from Indonesia. He emailed me on August 8, 2007 with the following message.
I was first diagnosed with stage 3B lung cancer on August 1, 2005. The cancer was found in my left lung. By this time my left lung was two-thirds full of fluid. The doctor removed the fluid from my lung and this was followed by chemotherapy. The doctor said chemotherapy had to be done right away, otherwise the cancer would spread further.
I agreed and underwent chemotherapy immediately. Treatment consisted of six cycles of Gemzar and carboplatin. After treatment, the cancer almost disappeared and the CEA fell to normal. The fluid in the lung dried up. After this round of chemotherapy, they asked me to continue on a drug called Tarceva. But the drug was not effective.
The doctor tried another round of chemotherapy on me. After the second round of chemotherapy, the doctor suggested surgery. After thinking about it for some time, my family and I agreed to have surgery. This was done in April 2006. During the operation, almost half of my left lung was removed. After the operation, the doctor gave me another round of chemotherapy. This consisted of four cycles. He told me that this chemotherapy was to clean up all the extra cell.
After the operation, I was cancer free for eight months. In March 2007, during a routine checkup, the doctor discovered that the cancer had returned. There was fluid in the lung again. Also, they told me that the cancer had spread to the spine and brain.
When the doctor discovered that the cancer had returned, he immediately suggested that I undergo radiation therapy to my brain. This was followed by chemotherapy again (my fourth round). The first cycle of chemotherapy no longer appeared to be effective. The CEA was elevated. The doctor switched to another drug. The “new drug” was able to keep / control the cancer as it was (it did not shrink the tumor, but my CEA was stable). During chemotherapy, my body felt pain and weakness. I preferred to stay in bed and didn’t feel like doing anything. I also experienced skin irritation.
After chemotherapy, my conditions had deteriorated.
o Both my feet can no longer feel the ground. The doctor said this was due to the effects of the chemotherapy drug.
o I lost all my hair.
o My hands go numb.
o I have no appetite or strength.
o I cannot walk straight. I feel unbalanced.
o I feel pain in my left chest, neck, and spine. Sometimes I have to stay in bed all day because of the pain.
o I can’t sleep well. You can probably only sleep 3-4 hours (maximum). Sometimes to force myself I take sleeping pills, but they only work for about 4-5 hours (max).
o My bowel movements are uncertain. Sometimes I had diarrhea, but there were times when I was constipated.
o My appetite is not good at all but I forced myself to eat to regain strength. I always force myself to eat, although sometimes I can’t taste food because my tongue is numb and tasteless.
o There is redness and small bumps on the sides of my nails.
o I cough during the day and at night. It is a continuous cough, but sometimes it stops on its own and then comes back. Most of the time it has yellow colored phlegm.
o Most of the time I feel short of breath. When I walk too long, I feel like I’m running out of breath. When I go upstairs, I need to rest several times after every 4-5 steps. Lately, there was a time when I felt a pinch in my chest and had difficulty breathing. This happened at night and I don’t know when it will happen again.
Before medical treatments he was a very active man and could do anything. I feel like cancer is taking everything out of my life. I heard the testimony of Ms. Patoppoi (in Jakarta, Indonesia) that she had breast cancer many years ago and is still doing well today.
Please indicate how I can treat my cancer. I’m taking “berry oil” but it doesn’t seem to help. So I plan to stop it. My doctor only gave me vitamin B12 to counteract the effects of my chemotherapy. Besides that, I did not take any other supplements.
Now I am desperately seeking your help.
Comments
This is a sad sorry. It is also an often repeated story that I encountered most of the time. It reflects the current state of medical treatment for cancer. Patients and their families can learn some lessons from this episode.
1. When someone has cancer, the initial reaction is panic. This is further compounded when the doctor said chemotherapy must be done right away, otherwise the cancer will spread further. Gullible patients easily buy such a “veiled professional warning.” Is this reasoning correct? I always tell patients and their families to stay calm after diagnosis. The cancer had already spread long before it was diagnosed. Cancer cells were already in the body, but they were not detected. Therefore, it is not entirely true to say that chemotherapy must be done immediately to stop the spread. The cancer had already spread! It is wise to take some time to evaluate your options. Why the rush? I believe that any decision made in a hurry or under duress is never a good decision.
2. After chemotherapy was finished, CEA was lowered. The doctor is happy and the patients are happy. The “magic bullet” had done its job, so to speak. But have patients ever been told that this supposed cure is not going to last?
3. As “insurance”, patients are often prescribed medication. In this case, San was asked to take Tarceva. Not long ago, lung cancer patients were asked to take Iressa, but this drug had already been withdrawn (in the Western world but not in Asia!) Because it caused serious and sometimes fatal side effects, as well as being it proved to be ineffective. Tarceva is just another brother in the same drug family. It is not at all surprising that Tarceva, despite its high cost, was not effective. The medical literature showed that Tarceva only prolonged life by just two months. It was never shown to cure lung cancer.
4. When treatment is not effective, often the next course of action is to give more of the same. San received more chemotherapy and this time more toxic drugs were used. In addition to chemotherapy, more firepower was requested: radiation and the knife. These methods are called “cutting, burning, and poisoning” in the belief and hope that all cancer cells in the body can be killed. Perhaps the world needs to be reminded of what Einstein said: “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is “crazy.”
5. I learned shortly after establishing CA Care that removing a part of the lung is never a way to cure lung cancer. My patient number two (out of thousands that I have seen) had a lobe of her lungs removed. He suffered a lot and finally died. San had half of his left lung removed, but the cancer spread to his brain and bones. The knife has not been shown to cure advanced stage cancer.
6. San wrote that he was cancer free for eight months. I would dispute it. When the tumor is removed, no one can see the “tumor” anymore; therefore, the “period-when-you-do-not-see-the-tumor” is wrongly perceived as a cure. I also learned that surgery is only to “buy” time, to remove “rotten” tissue. It may not be necessary to kill all cancer cells in the body.
7. What matters is: do patients recover and really heal? Evidence such as reduced CEA, shrunken tumor, etc., does not mean much. These are good “selling points” for providing “false hope,” but patients should know that these so-called good signs do not last.
8. In San’s case, the cancer reappeared and spread to his brain and bones. The battle is about to be lost, but the “General” believes that there is still a chance that the war can be won. Give more firepower! This time, cancer cells in battle strike back. This time, the cancer cells “go numb” and become resistant to the drugs. And they fight back with vengeance.
9. Finally, the doctor saw reality. Apart from declaring war lost, he prescribed vitamin pills. The patient, in this case, was left “hung and dry,” often worse than he started, physically and financially drained to the core. They are lucky if the State Social Security or Health Insurance pays the expenses. Unfortunately, in this part of the world, patients and their families need to resort to saving or selling their property throughout their lives, etc., to pay off hospital bills.
10. Dr. Lai Gi-ming, Taiwan Cooperative Oncology Group, National Research Institute was right when he wrote: “What frustrates modern physicians most is that after surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, everything what they can do is keep chasing and chasing cancer! “It is only at this stage that patients come to us for help.
