Kunta Kinte Meets the Show Princess

I began my consolidation phase of chemotherapy and radiation this morning. There were so many patients in oncology that it took until 10:00 for me to get hooked up. D. B. drove me to the oncology center and T. R. came later for a visit. T. mentioned again that his former girl friend was marrying a six foot four South African. He said that the was a meeting of Kunta Kinte with the “Snow Princess!” For the most part, I was rather tired during the chemo, but I made it through without too much discomfort.

After my early afternoon radiation treatment, I met with Dr. Halberg. She is really nice, and spent the most unhurried time with me that I had experienced with any physician on my team since Dr. Torigoe spent almost two hours with us. She was caring and patient, even though she was interrupted several times to look at X-Rays, and other short tasks. I was rather surprised by her statement that she didn’t expect me to have a complete response! She remarked that my initial invasive tumor was so aggressive and so extensive that she was surprised and happy by the pathology report! She also discussed the surface tumor with us, and said that she would not be surprised if I developed further surface tumors, and that anything we could do to prevent them was a step in the right direction. I had already told my wife that when this round of chemo and radiation was completed, I wanted to do a lot of new research on how to prevent bladder tumors from growing in the first place. Francine also mention that she was familiar with the anti-biotic trials at Pan Pacific Urology, but that I probably would not be eligible.

The second pass of radiation went without incident. I continued to do my visualization of the radiation as light entering my body and encouraging immature cells and potential cancer cells to shrivel up and be eliminated through my normal elimination channels. I also visualize my body as transparent to the radiation in such a way that the X-Rays affect the immature cells and potential cancer cells and then pass through my body, as in the X-Ray transmission studies in physics. I want to chat with the radiation physicist to understand the X-Ray transmission studies in more detail, as it has been almost thirty years since I left the field of physics for computers.

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Back to Work

February 12, 1997 – Back to Work

This morning I spoke with Francine Halberg (H 10), a colleague of Dr. Wayne Torigoe. She knew who I was because she had already spoken with Dr. Gullion and Dr. Shipley! She wants to see me to discuss the difficulties and side effects of Dr. Shipley’s regime.

On the way to NGC, I listened to a tape of a lecture by Dr. Allen Hoffman in which he spoke about his work with a concentrated form Aloe Vera and the use of cesium chloride in the treatment of AIDS and cancer. The lecture was very understandable, and I want to see if he is simply selling, “snake oil!” Later that evening, I spoke with P. R. and Dr. Huang about is, but was unable to get any further information.

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Treatment Options: Radiological Consult

January 30, 1997 – Radiological Consult

The next day we met with Dr. Torigoe. This time we took J and L with us. They have been friends for the whole time my wife and I have been together, and they have and extremely rational outlook on life. Naturally, we would have liked to take Dr. Rossman too, but he has his practice and we didn’t want to bother him.

We had a very long discussion with Dr. Torigoe. His patience and understanding were remarkable. He, too, thought that the “Gold Standard” for treatment of bladder cancer is radical cystectomy. But, as he put it, “Radiation and chemotherapy are a viable alternative, especially if the radical cystectomy is too morbid for some people.”

When I explained what transpired in our conversation with Dr. Torigoe to Dr. Rossman, he recommended that I contact Dr. Dave Gullion, who he was planning to see the next day at Commonweal. Dr. Gullion is a medical oncologist in the same building as Dr. Torigoe and he is also associated with Marin General Hospital.

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Radical Is As Radical Does!

January 29, 1997 – Radical Is As Radical Does!

Around noon on this day, I received a phone call from Dr. Neuwirth. He wanted to see me in his office at 5:00 P. M. that afternoon. He also told me that I had a bladder cancer and that he needed to explain to me all of my options.

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Instead of panicking, I immediately started a search on the World Wide Web for “bladder cancer.” I found many references and lots of good sites. I printed off several of them to take with me to Dr. Neuwirth’s office. These included Bladder Cancer, Understanding Bladder Cancer, MedicineNet’s Bladder Cancer, and About Bard BTA Test. Of these, the first turned out to be the most useful because of the way it talks about treatment by stage of bladder cancer.

We brought R. D., the father of a childhood friend of my wife, and Dr. Rossman to the meeting with Dr. Neuwirth to help us remember the conversation and all that we said. It is always a good idea to take people you trust so that they can bear witness to your conversation and possibly hear things that you can’t because of your emotional involvement with the case.

Dr. Neuwirth started to explain the “stage” and “grade” of the tumor based on a preliminary verbal report from the pathologist. Once he said “T2,” I dropped the Bladder Cancer paper pointing to the section on T2-4 tumors. His jaw practically fell to his desk! He said, “I wouldn’t put it that bluntly, but that’s basically what we have here!” He also mentioned that I had some carcinoma in situ and a bit of dysplasia, which are abnormal cells. Later, we found out that I also had some atypia cells from Dr. Torigoe (see below).

He proceeded to explain the ins and outs of the medical alternatives for treatment of stage two bladder cancer. The choices were basically

  1. Cystectomy – partial or radical
  2. Radiation
  3. Chemotherapy

Dr. Neuwirth, being a surgeon, naturally recommended radical cystectomy. We asked him all of the questions in Appendix 1.

My son was born on January 29, 1969. Today he was 28 years old. It’s funny how life is. I had to give him the bad news on his birthday. On March 7, 9, 14, and 16 he was scheduled to have a leading role in La Boheme, as Marcello. I wanted to see him perform and didn’t want any disabling therapy to begin before I had a chance to see him.

That night, we spoke with Dr. Sara Huang, a radiation oncologist at St. Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco. She has long been a friend of the family and was devastated by the news. She mentioned that the “Gold Standard” of treatment for bladder cancer was radical cystectomy. However, she had some hopeful information about the possibility of chemotherapy used in conjunction with radiation therapy and recommend that we consult Dr. Wayne Torigoe at Marin General.