A Good Day
Both Friday and Monday were good days. On Friday, the doctors felt that Ben was doing well enough to lower his dose of steriods. This was particulaly good news since they cause some pretty icky side effects. Mainly, they cause weight gain in the face, exteme fatigue, increased irritability, and constant hunger. We shifted his dose from every 6hrs. to every 8hrs, and boy, what a difference! He had so much more energy over the weekend. He even ran after a squirrel for a short distance at the park. It was a great sight to see. Monday’s doctor appt. was even better. He did so well in the exam, that Dr. Foreman decided to change Ben’s appt schedule from twice a week, to only once a week. This may seem small, but at this point, we’ll take what we can get. We also meet with a doctor next week who will fill us in on any clinical trials that we might be interested in. Since this type of cancer has no known cure, our hope must lie with other unconventional treatments. Therefore, Ben has begun taking some homeopathic and/or herbal remedies recommended by his naturopathic doctor. Some of these have anti-cancer properties that are meant to attack the tumor, while others are meant to help with all of the side effects associated with the steriods and the radiation treatments. Two in particular are recommended by a homeopathic doctor in India who has attracted the interest of the National Cancer Society (in a good way). He claims that when these two remedies are taken together, they have caused several of his patient’s gliomas of the brain to go into full remission! Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we see a similar result.
Well, I guess thats probably enough for everyone to have to process for right now, and it’s getting late. Please feel free to call and talk to us if you have any questions about any of this. It helps us to share this with others and it will help others to understand what we’re going through.
Melinda
