I have been approached by numerous people, asking if there is anything they can do to help Emily as she goes through treatment. Some of our family members created Emily's Fund, which will help finance her unreimbursed medical expenses.
When we last saw our hero, she had become vegan and was living a clean and healthy lifestyle.She had never felt or looked better – even her pale skin had taken on a lovely tan hue because of the vast amounts of beta carotene in her system. Things were back to normal until late October when she was felled by the dreaded swine flu.She was back on her feet again after a few weeks, but her cough persisted until December and she was diagnosed with pneumonia.After a course of antibiotics and a brief respite from coughing, she started to have pain in her shoulder and back and her doctor suggested a chest x-ray, which showed a mass in her left lung.
Now the first thing I thought when I heard the news was “uh oh, lung cancer.”As it turns out, it isn’t technically lung cancer. It is breast cancer of the lung – weird, huh?Anyway, after her previous bad experiences with chemo, she had already made up her mind that if any cancer came back, she would not pursue chemo as a course of treatment. She has done extensive research on treatment options and she is working with her Naturopath to find a healthy alternative to the standard protocols.Currently she is doing occasional IV therapy and infrared heat therapy twice a day in an effort to shrink the mass.She will get monthly blood tests and chest x-rays to mark the progress of this therapy.
Through all of her research, she came across a doctor in New York named Nicholas Gonzalez.He was featured in the book “Knockout” as one of the doctors who is curing cancer using alternative methods. His method is aimed at treating the underlying reasons WHY the body is getting cancer and involves diet, detox and pancreatic enzyme therapy. In order to get into his program, she wrote a long and detailed letter about her past treatments and current diet regimens, and sent it off early in February.She found out last weekend that she was accepted in to his program and will be traveling to New York for a consultation near the end of March.She is very interested in this treatment plan and is looking forward to her appointment. She is also lucky enough have a few extra days built in to her trip to go meet Baby Tess!
If you are interested in reading more about the Gonzalez plan, you can check out his website at www.dr-gonzalez.com/treatment.
A body scan that finally produced good results:PRICELESS!
It has been 5 weeks since Emily finished radiation and she had yet another full body scan last Friday. For the first time since she was diagnosed, she received some positive test results. Her scan came back clear! She gets a three month break and will have another scan in August, just to check a few little spots that were inconclusive on this test. After that, she need only have two more clear scans before she is considered cancer free!
Congratulations on the great news, Em! We are so happy for you!
After Emily's last radiation treatment, she received this certificate of completion. I thought it was very clever and uplifting so here it is for all to see. You can click on the image to make it bigger.
After 4 1/2 weeks of daily radiation, Emily is officially a crispy critter. The areas around her collar bone and under her arm are such a deep, angry red that it seems almost purple. She is also blistering and peeling at the same time. Since she is so dramatically burned, her doctor has given her this week off from treatment and they are hoping to finish the last 7 sessions starting next week.
We have no information as to the next course of treatment once radiation is complete. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that this is it and she can get back to business as usual!
To my surprise, Emily says that radiation is no big deal. She has completed 9 out of 33 visits and has no ill effects so far. Her doctor says that she won't notice anything for the first 3 weeks so I will update the site when and if anything changes!
It has been another busy month in Emily’s cancer battle.After she had the newly affected lymph nodes removed in December, she had to wait extra time for all of the pathology to be completed because of the Arctic Blast.When the results finally came back we found out that it was the same type of cancer cells as before, but with some mutations.The tissue samples for the drug resistance testing couldn’t be released until the pathology was done so that testing was seriously delayed and we still have no results. As far as the specialist in Boston is concerned, it turns out that she does not do phone consultations so if Em wants her opinion, she will have to travel across the country for an appointment.She is still deciding whether or not to take that trip.
Emily has decided to pursue radiation as her next course of treatment.She will go in for a dose every day (M-F) for six weeks, starting this Wednesday.In order to do radiation, the doctors put a little tattoo mark on the skin in the area to be treated.Em had to get 4 tattoo dots last week and she was surprised by the how much those little dots hurt.She said that every part of her body wanted to jump right off of the table to get far away from the needle!Her teenage desire to get a tattoo is now officially squelched.
After Emily's last radiation treatment, she received this certificate of completion. I thought it was very clever and uplifting so here it is for all to see. You can click on the image to make it bigger.
