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. At that 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 that the chemotherapy had to be done immediately, otherwise the cancer would spread further.
I agreed and immediately underwent chemotherapy. Treatment consisted of six cycles of Gemzar and carboplatin. After treatment, the cancer almost disappeared and the CEA decreased to the normal value. The fluid in the lung dried up. After this round of chemotherapy, I was asked 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 for some time, my family and I agreed to have the 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 leftover cells.
After the operation, I was cancer free for eight months. In March 2007, during a routine checkup, the doctor found that the cancer had returned. Again there was fluid in the lung. Also, I was told that the cancer had spread to my spine and brain.
When the doctor discovered that the cancer had returned, he immediately suggested that I have radiation therapy to my brain. This was followed by chemotherapy again (my fourth round). The first cycle of chemotherapy no longer seemed to be effective. CEA was elevated. The doctor switched to another drug. The “new drug” was able to retain/control the cancer as it was (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 My two 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 feel numb.
o I have no appetite or strength.
o I can’t walk straight. I feel out of balance.
o I feel pain in the left side of my 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 get 3-4 hours of sleep (max). Sometimes to force myself I take sleeping pills but it only works for about 4-5 hours (at most).
o My bowel movements are uncertain. He sometimes experienced diarrhea but there were times when he 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 even though sometimes I can’t taste the food because my tongue is numb and has no taste.
o There is redness and small swellings on the sides of the nails.
o I cough during the day and night. It’s a continuous cough, but sometimes it stops on its own and then comes back. Most of the time you have yellow colored phlegm.
o Most of the time I feel out of breath. When I walk too much I feel like I’m running out of breath. When I walk up the stairs I need to rest several times after every 4 or 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 he’ll be back.
Before the medical treatments I was a very active man and could do anything. I feel like cancer is taking everything from my life. I heard the testimony of Ms. Patoppoi (in Jakarta, Indonesia) that she had breast cancer many years ago and she is still doing well to this day.
Please indicate how I can treat my cancer. I’m taking “the 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. Other than that I didn’t take any other supplements.
I am now desperately seeking your help.
Comments
This is a sad pardon. It’s also an oft-repeated story that I found most of the time. It reflects the current state of medical cancer treatment. Patients and their families can learn some lessons from this episode.
1. When someone has cancer, the initial reaction is panic. This is further complicated when the doctor said that chemotherapy must be done immediately, otherwise the cancer will spread further. Gullible patients easily buy such “veiled professional warnings.” Is this reasoning correct? I always tell patients and their families to stay calm after their diagnosis. The cancer had already spread far before it was diagnosed. The 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 advisable to take some time to evaluate your options. Why the rush? I believe that any decision made in a hurry or harshly is never a good decision.
2. After finishing chemotherapy, CEA decreased. The doctor is happy and the patients are happy. The “magic bullet” had done her job, so to speak. But were patients ever told that this supposed cure was not going to last?
3. As a “safe” patient medications are often prescribed. 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, in addition to showing that it was not effective. Tarceva is just another brother from 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 only two months. He was never shown to cure lung cancer.
4. When treatment is not effective, the next course of action is often 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 used: radiation and the scalpel. These methods are what they call “cut, burn and poison” in the belief and hope that all cancer cells in the body can be eliminated. Perhaps the world needs to be reminded of what Einstein said: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” is “insanity.”
5. I learned soon after establishing CA Care that removing part of the lung is never a cure for lung cancer. My Number Two patient (of the thousands I have seen) had a lobe of her lung removed. He suffered a lot and finally died. San had half of his left lung removed, but the cancer moved 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. He would argue with that. When the tumor is removed, no one can see the “tumor” anymore; therefore, the “tumor-free period” is mistakenly perceived as a cure. I also learned that surgery is just to “buy” time, to remove “rotten” tissue. It may not be necessary to remove all cancer cells from the body.
7. What matters is: do the patients recover and are they really cured? Evidences such as reduced CEA, reduced tumor, etc., do not mean much. These are good “selling points” to provide “false hope,” but patients should know that these so-called good signs don’t last.
8. In San’s case, the cancer came back and spread to his brain and bones. The battle is about to be lost, but the “General” believes that there is still a chance to win the war. Give him more firepower! This time, the conflicting cancer cells fight back. This time, the cancer cells become “numb” and become resistant to the drugs. And they strike back with a vengeance.
9. Finally, the doctor saw reality. Before declaring the war lost, he prescribed vitamin pills. The patient, in this case, was left “hanging high 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 costs. Unfortunately, in this part of the world, patients and their families must resort to saving their entire lives or selling their property, etc., to pay hospital bills.
10. Dr. Lai Gi-ming, Taiwan Cooperative Oncology Group, National Research Institute was right when he wrote, “What frustrates modern doctors most is that after surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, everything what they can do is keep chasing and chasing cancer!” It’s just that at this stage patients come to us for help.