Day 7: Health Update & Putting It All Together

Day 7, Monday, November 9, 2015.

Wow! Its already been one week and even though today’s therapies are the “tougher” ones of Ryan’s protocol, it also proved to be an awesome day!

Ryan has made it a custom to wake up around 6:30am to allow his body to be awake before the 7am coffee wake up call. It greatly boosts his mind, body and spirit to have time to think prior to enema time. I am always awaken by the smell of coffee in the morning as the nurse walks in with a fresh pot of boiled Organic Regular Coffee. (coffee enema recipe, click here) (Gerson Enema Kit click here)

After breakfast the nurse approached me and asked if I thought Ryan was ready for the Photopheresis shots. I answered, “of course!” Little did I understand why she was a bit inquisitive on Ryan’s overall mood.

This phase of Photopheresis involves four shots that prepare the body for receiving the UVA treated white blood cells back into his body. (To understand the first part of Photopheresis, please refer to the Day 3 blog.) The nurse pulls out the first needle and starts administrating the shots: one to the front right shoulder, one to the front left shoulder, one to the left groin and one to the right groin. Lets just say that this ranks as one of the “toughest” treatments Ryan has to endure. Thankfully, it doesn’t take very long.

Ouch!

Once the shots were administered, the nurse needed to move on to administering the IV bag of White Blood cells which meant Ryan needed a new IV line. Oh my! Here we go again. The nurse was very sweet, gentle and did things slowly. Unfortunately, the vein was reacting the same way as it had the previous week. After a long attempt Ryan asked her to stop and he stood up. Since I had told him the treating doctor and the surgeon were waiting to speak with him in the living room he headed straight there. Ryan barges in and immediately starts stating all his concerns and wanted to know again what were his options. The surgeon spoke about installing a 21day temporary catheter port and we spoke about the care and risks. After further discussions the surgeon looks at Ryan’s arms and says,” let me give it a try. I really think I can put an IV in for you on the other arm.” He could tell Ryan was willing to go with a port but at the same time Ryan is just quite funny about those things. The surgeon, the nurse, Ryan and I headed to back to the room. The surgeon immediately got started and as quickly as I could snap a picture of the ordeal the IV line was in. Ryan just about broke down crying. Here was a surgeon who was willing to take the time to install an IV line because he knew Ryan’s heart and hesitations. It struck Ryan in an emotional but positive way. The care and willingness of the staff is above board at the CHIPSA Hospital. Ryan even joked with the surgeon that he would need to be his new nurse on IV line days. (Side note: the nurses are great, but Ryan had only one arm to work with until today, so the surgeon used the ‘unused arm’ since we all realized Ryan no longer has muscle spasms. We’ll post that story another day.)

IV Line is In!

The remainder of the Photopheresis was simple. Ryan stayed in his room until the bag emptied and all his white blood cells had been put back into his body. In laymen’s terms, the treated white blood cells cause a reaction within the body to go and attack diseased and damaged cells. In Ryan’s case, it stimulates the body to go attack and kill the cancerous cells. This treatment has already been approved by the US FDA for T-Cell Lymphoma (Ryan was diagnosed with B-Cell Lymphoma) but further research shows it can actually work for many types of cancers! (Photopheresis: Day 3)

Now on to the even more awesome part of our day!

Last Thursday, Dr. Lopez approached us about an additional treatment option. It’s called an autologous tumor cell vaccine. With many of the tumors in Ryan’s body being so easily accessible he is a prime candidate for this type of treatment, but something they could not offer until he had been examined by a hospital physician at CHIPSA. In the following days we received the costs involved as it would be a minor outpatient surgery, the costs to create the vaccine and they answered many of our questions and concerns. Within the day, the surgeon came by and felt a handful of Ryan’s lymph nodes and decided it was best to remove one from the armpits as they were so easily accessible and would cause little discomfort, little decrease in mobility and easier for him to recover from. On Saturday afternoon I spoke with the doctor on duty to see if he could answer some questions, but he suggested it would be best we spoke directly with the surgeon. To my surprise the surgeon stopped by the hospital and completely answered the remainder of our questions and concerns. We decided to move forward with the procedure. It was set for Monday.

Autologous Tumor Cell Vaccine (also referred to as Dendritric Cell Vaccines)

A therapeutic agent produced by isolating tumor cells from an individual and processing these tumor cells into a vaccine formulation in vitro; the vaccine is then administered to the individual from whom the tumor cells were isolated. Typically combined with an adjuvant immunostimulant, an autologous cell vaccine may elicit a cytotoxic T-lymphocytic immune response to cell surface-expressed tumor-associated antigens (TAAs), resulting in tumor cell death. source: www.cancer.gov

At around 1:30pm, Ryan and I headed down to the second floor. It was a simple pre-op then I headed upstairs for my cooking class. (loved that too!) The surgeon chose to do localized anesthesia so Ryan stayed awake for the whole procedure. As they got started, before the anesthesia was administered, the surgeon felt Ryan’s armpit area. After a few moments he stated he could not find any lymph nodes so he felt the other underarm area. Ryan’s lymph nodes on both armpits have reduced in size so much that those lymph nodes were no longer available for the procedure!!! Ryan does still have many other lymph nodes large enough, especially in his groin area, so it was determined and agreed to remove a lymph node from his right groin. In less than an hour they called the kitchen and let me know that Ryan was done. I came downstairs and he was standing up smiling, beaming with the great news. He was his excited, loud and story telling self. They even let us see and take a picture of the lymph node inside a sterile container (gross, but cool!) Ryan was happy as can be. I felt so much joy and in almost shock for two reasons. It was validated that the nodes are shrinking (other nodes around his neck are also smaller) AND that the procedure was so simple that he walked to his room!

So to recap: Ryan’s underarm nodes are no longer seen or felt by regular hand palpitation. ALL of Ryan’s pain is gone: his bone pain, rib pain, shortness of breath/chest pain, lower back pain, ALL of his pain has been relieved. His stomach is softening up (the largest mass of malignant lymphocytes is in the belly) and no longer pushes on his ribs, therefore Ryan is now able to breathe and sit comfortably. The swelling of his ankles (edema) has not returned for a couple days now either. At the last weigh in, which was several days ago, he had gained a pound or two. His appetite has increased and overall energy and strength has increased. He is on his way to #CancerFreeRyan !!!!

In just one week, with Ryan’s tenacity, positive attitude and willingness to push himself to eat the foods and do as the doctors/nurses are requesting of him, we are seeing results! I am one happy gal! I know it is still a long road ahead as the mass in his stomach is quite large, but we press onward. Focusing on the positive, continuing with the diet, nutrition, supplements and therapy protocols and it will happen!

To end the day, Ryan did go thru another session of Coley’s toxins (learn more about Coley’s: Day 1 blogpost).

We were also able to speak with Dr. Lopez about dental options to remove Ryan’s mercury filling and root canal. Dr. Lopez was excited to hear we are considering this option and we are currently researching the costs to do this procedure in Mexico and the costs in Tulsa. There is a well known holistic dental office in Tijuana. Back in the day when Dr. Issels was alive he would not even allow his patients to go through the Issel’s vaccine protocol without removing all mercury and other toxins from their bodies. Dr. Issels spent his last 3 years of life in the mid to late 90s at the CHIPSA Hospital training the chemist and the doctors. The chemist removed blood from Ryan the first day we arrived and is currently working on the Issels’ vaccine (more about dendritic cell vaccine, click here). He will get the first dose of the Issels vaccine next week. (to learn about the Issels Autologous Vaccine, click here and scroll down quite a bit)

Since we continue to be real, raw and honest; for simplicity here’s a recap of Ryan’s personalized protocol while in Mexico. He will be in Mexico for a total of 4 weeks. Please note that each patient receives a different protocol tailored to their needs, type of disease, stage and budget. The usual stay at the hospital is 3 weeks; some stay shorter time frames and some stay longer. No patient is the same and there are additional treatments that are available at CHIPSA. Ryan’s protocol is for informational purposes only and should not be seen as medical advice or be self administered. If you are interested I highly suggest you message my hubs so he can refer you to a contact at CHIPSA. (there’s my medical disclaimer!)

Gerson Diet (13 juices + 3 meals/day) – (we use this juicer.)

Coffee Enemas (5x/day) – here’s a Starter Kit

Supplements, including daily b12 shots (daily – still learning, so will share specifics at a later time) – we later changed to Methyl B12 capsules (to learn more about Ryan’s specific supplements please read The Last Day: Next Steps, Part 1 which has his protocol)

Coley’s Toxins (7x total)

Hydrotherapy Hyperthermia + Laetrile (13x total)

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (12x total)

PUVA Photopheresis

Issels Autologous Vaccine

Autologous Tumor Cell Vaccine

*we added Acupuncture (1x/week, 4total)

*possibly adding in Mexico the removal of mercury fillings at a local biomedical dental office

Why so many protocols? Because Ryan is a Stage 4 cancer patient and its what we decided based on the doctor’s recommendation. Someone else may not need all these therapies and their protocol will be different. Just coming to the hospital to immerse oneself in the Gerson Therapy (diet, juices & enemas) and a couple of treatments, per the doctor’s recommendation, may be enough. Again, we are doing what we feel is best for Ryan, not someone else.

To end the blogpost I would like to share what I have learned in the last week and it continues to be supported thru all my ongoing research. In a nutshell, there is essentially a 3 way cancer causing cocktail and a 4 part cancer eradication protocol (for teenagers and older). Once someone recognizes the cancer causing cocktail and is willing to face and work through these issues then you can move thru eradication of cancer with greater odds of success. Here it is: “Caroline’s simplified version in laymen’s term.”

Cancer Causing Cocktail:

1. Nutrition
2. Emotions (I spoke briefly about emotions on Day 2 Blogpost)
3. Toxins (thru diet and environment)

Cancer/Disease Eradication Cocktail:

1. Nutrition
2. Emotions
3. Repair/Boost Immune System
4. Removal of Toxins/Killing of Cancer Cells
5. *Edited to add: Address Micronutrient Deficiencies

I believe that we need to look at each of these points and self evaluate. For those that have never faced the disease, we should be proactive so as not to face a disease as Ryan is currently fighting. Those that have already been diagnosed with cancer should actively evaluate if current treatment protocols is taking into consideration all facets. We are a human being, not a human part and our bodies our interconnected physically, emotionally and mentally thru energy that connects our entire being. So, lets heal the whole being.

***Please remember that this is my own research and I don’t assume or pretend to know it all. I am simply attempting to simplify into laymen’s terms what seems to be a highly complex disease that affects everyone one way or another. There are always exceptions to the rule and planet earth sometimes makes NO SENSE AT ALL. I implore you to evaluate your current life choices so as to not assume you will be an exception to the rule. In America current statistics show 1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer. 1 in 2 males will be diagnosed with cancer. Every Single Day 35,000 people are diagnosed with Cancer. I NEVER thought it would happen to my husband. Let’s live in courage and in peace. As I stated on my very first blog post:

“Cancer is just an indicator that something is out of balance in our bodies, whether physical and/or mental. Cancer isn’t something to be feared, but only to be seen as an alarm our bodies send out.”

With much love, respect and hope for everyone,

#LuelfStrong
Live loved,
Live free . . . because YOLO!
~Caroline Luelf

This post was updated December 3, 2018
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