This was going to be a First Day of Protocol 2 post but then I went on a rant. And now it’s 13:15 and I am on the couch still in my house coast and have been typing for 3 hours. So I will do another post on Protocol 2.
First off I wish to express my profound gratitude to all my incredible donors. Their generosity has allowed me to proceed without the overwhelming burden of stress and debt. I’ve successfully secured funds for Protocol 2 and am currently focusing on financing Protocol 3. Moreover, losing another kilo has made the treatment cheaper!! This protocol, unfortunately, comes with high costs, largely due to the exorbitant price of obtaining DON. HBOT is also exceptionally costly, and I’m grateful to be getting a deal. Because Cancer is not one of the 14 indications for HBOT in Canada, I cannot get it covered by MSP. Opting for a licensed facility with Health Canada-approved chambers would mean travelling to Burnaby, where a 90-minute session at BaroMedical would cost $395. Alternatively, I could go to Oceanside Hyperbaric in Parksville and pay $170 but I don’t think the chamber is Health Canada-approved, not that I care. A safe chamber is a safe chamber at this moment in time. However, being budget-conscious aka cheap, I’ve chosen a lesser-known HBOT service for $150. Although it might appear unconventional and dubious, it has proven its efficacy and ensures safe delivery to 2.8 ATA, it’s just a black market sketchy-looking location. But you know, if you do the risk/reward analysis I am so fond of these days you will also come to the conclusion that it’s absolutely weighted on the reward side of the scale. But then again I am not fearless, most things I do are on the reward end I’m not non-sensical after all. It’s just that with a do-or-die diagnosis, it’s faster to move more on the reward end of the scale haha. Anyway, if DON weren’t so restrictively priced, HBOT would constitute the most expensive component of this potentially life-saving, cancer-curing protocol.
I do genuinely appreciate every single dollar that has come my way. Besides striving for my well-being, I’m also driven by the desire to actually cure cancer and help others. The objective is clear: to save my life. Yet, occasionally, my decisions lean more towards contributing to the broader scientific community. Numerous studies highlight the advantages of various drugs. One such drug, Metformin, known for regulating blood sugar, surprisingly also possesses off-label anticancer properties. Having been around for decades and off-patent, it’s affordable, and it remains in production. While people with diabetes enjoy MSP coverage for Metformin, cancer patients do not. However, its extensive research suggests that informed MDs, those keen on broadening their knowledge, frequently prescribe it for its anticancer properties. Two main reasons behind this:
- Metformin, which has been used for at least 70 years, has a well-documented side effect profile and is renowned as the most effective drug for managing blood glucose.
- Statistically, diabetic patients on Metformin have fewer instances of Cancer, a trend observed over many decades.
Given our North American lifestyle and diet, many could benefit from Metformin. However, the addition of more treatments into my protocol complicates pinpointing the most effective ones, especially since I’m still on my “standard of care.” If I recover, it’s plausible that my oncologist might attribute my recovery to this standard, even if it’s merely a treatment and not a cure. As is said in a stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis, this Cancer is “treatable, not curable.” Consequently, things such as chemo, radiation, immunotherapy, and hormone therapy aim to prolong life rather than cure. My oncologist’s plan only incorporates radiation as a pain management strategy. In earlier stages, radiation might be employed post-surgery to remove residual cells. In my case, the focus is on reducing tumour size when other pain relief methods prove ineffective. Interestingly, I find solace in this approach, given radiation’s carcinogenic nature and if I get the amount of radiation needed to zap each tumour I have I would certainly develop a bunch of other cancers.
Observing the medical world’s stance is disheartening: advocating incurability, prescribing non-curative treatments, and then claiming success and credit upon a patient’s recovery if and when these “miracles” do happen. Often, such anomolies go unreported, I don’t even know who they are supposed to report them to because it’s not like Cancer has a coordinated global database. I digress again…back to Metformin – adding standard care, Metformin, HBOT, DON, and Keto, among others, muddy the waters, making it challenging to determine the real game-changer.
For those yet to be informed (you should read my other blog posts), my Cancer is characterized as ER+ (Estrogen Receptor Positive), PR- (Progesterone Receptor Negative), and HER2- (Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2). Here’s a list of my prescribed medications, their purposes, and why:
Anastrazole (Hormone Therapy): Anastrozole lowers estrogen levels in the body. Oestrogen stimulates some breast cancers to grow, specifically ER+ cancers—this one you can take for up to 5 years. I don’t know why there is a limit…maybe because the five-year survival for metastatic breast cancer is five years? Perhaps the cumulative effects start to outweigh the benefits at that point; maybe it loses efficacy? Either way, we are reminded that most cancer drugs are given to people who are dying (because an oncologist isn’t trying to cure a disease the government and college say is incurable). They are prescribing meds that the FDA has approved for Cancer and making recommendations on other treatments that fall into the “Gold Standard” of clinical studies, none of which have been shown to cure cancer.
Zoladex (Hormone Therapy): Another drug for ER+ cancers but used in pre-menopausal women, this one stops your ovaries from producing estrogen, effectively putting you into early and sudden menopause. This has been a blessing in disguise. I love love menopause. I would say for at least the last eight years I have been on a hormonal rollercoaster that affected my moods so much that I often wondered how I had not gone into a murderous rampage monthly and why no one else had murdered me. Now, I am steady. I am so jealous of all men and the rare female who was always chill. You have no idea what hormones can do until you don’t have them. It’s insanity how emotionally stable I am; even with a terminal diagnosis and the BS of the system, I am way more chill than I was with estrongen ruling everything. I highly recommend Cancer for the estrogen-blocking effects of the drugs. haha
Ribocyclib (Targeted therapy): Targets the proteins cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and cyclin-dependant 6 (CDK 4 and CDK 6) on breast cancer cells. CDKs are related to the cell cycle, the division and duplication. This med has an average efficacy of 22 months and can slow the growth of some cancer cells. The side effects are crappy, this one makes me sick, but the main issue that I don’t like is it weakens my immune system, specifically by lowering my neutrophils. I often wonder why I read that immunotherapy is the newest and most advanced technology in cancer care when we are still mainly prescribing cancer patients meds that crush their immune systems—something doesn’t add up.
Zoladronic Acid (Bone Drug): This one is used for many bone disorders, and fortunately for me, it has an on-label effect of balancing the regular creation and breakdown of bone, which helps to prevent fractures and having your bone calcium leak out into your blood rather than staying in your bones like its supposed to. Off-label- It has an anticancer effect that they don’t understand. So, even patients with cancers that don’t have bone metastases can benefit from this. I was on Pamidronate before this, but I saw a bone specialist who knew that Pamidrotate was the least effective bone med (the standard of care…and the cheapest), and she let me choose between ZA and another. Coincidentally, I was talking to a doctor in the US about something, and he mentioned the off-label benefit of ZA. So I asked my oncologist, who said he had the authority to prescribe it at the agency. I think he didn’t initially because it’s not part of the first-line standard of care. Anyway, I am now on a better bone med than I started…thanks to my asking everything and my spare no one approach to figuring this out.
Effexor – for two reasons:
1) It’s a depression med, and who wants to go through Cancer without them? And I know you are thinking I just gave menopause credit for my sanity, but here I am on anti-depressants. I admit I had been on Effexor for years before the Cancer, and it did not make me less murderously inclined. But the effexor did stop me from crying daily, but not until they realized I had a critical low B12 and I got injections. Then, once I could make happy hormones (you need B12 for this), the meds kicked in. We never figured out why, as a meat and cheese eater, I randomly lost all my B12. In hindsight, it was likely something to do with the massive tumour growing inside of me.
2) I stay on Effexor now because it has an off-label use to reduce hot flashes caused by menopause, and they often give it to female cancer patients since most of us were already menopausal or were chemically induced with hormone, chemo or radiation.
As for all the other drugs I want to take to optimize life-saving measures, but don’t because it reduces the value of this experiment that will benefit others:
Mebendazole/Fenbendazole: I have in this my possession, but haven’t thoroughly researched potential adverse effects. I’ve read about rare bone marrow suppression side effects, and with my existing bone and low neutrophil issues, I’m wary. Also, this is another like metformin where you can get progressive doctors to order it as an off-label anticancer med. Mebendazole is the human form where you need a prescription; the chemical structure is C_16H_13N_3O_3. Fenbendazole is the animal version you can get on Amazon; the chemical structure is C_15H_13N_3O_2S. They are very similar; the key difference is that fenbendazole has a sulfur-containing sulfoxide functional group (phenylsulfinyl) attached to it, whereas mebendazole has a benzoyl group. This difference in their chemical structures influences their pharmacokinetics and the types of parasites they’re most effective against, but from a cancer perspective, it’s the same thing. They are currently doing cancer studies using both.
Turkey Tail: A mushroom used in Japanese cancer treatments for over 30 years. Even Sloan Kettering acknowledges its minimal side effects. It’s puzzling why we don’t adopt such beneficial therapies. No side effects, and it helps boost the immune system…hmm, let’s sit on that for a half-century.
Metformin: As discussed above.
Berberine: A natural alternative to Metformin but like many natural options it’s less effective. But that is what most meds come from, a natural product that has been broken down to its effective molecule, synthesized and patented. Look up the history of Asparin, it comes from Willow Tree bark and was used for millennia as a pain relief (chew on this bark while I cut your leg off). Then in the 1800’s we isolated the active compound, in the 1900’s we synthesized it, in the 2000’s we are back to using it like we were just chewing on Willow bark.
EGCG/Green Tea: I drink it, but probably not in therapeutic quantities. I’d rather have it in pill form for efficacy.
Turmeric: I consume it but it’s still not prevalent enough in my diet for therapeutic effects. Taking a supplement might be more beneficial.
Okay, that’s quite a bit about medications. I hope that all makes sense, highlighting the dilemma I face. Do I take everything I can or streamline it to something more reasonable and potentially repeatable that could benefit others? Imagine designing a “gold standard” study from such a regimen. With not much profit to be made from that list, who would want to invest $500 million? Then there’s the challenging aspect of diet and lifestyle to consider. That, my friends, is why if this is going to work to save my life and others, it has to be driven from the grassroots. I know of one person before me who has cured his Cancer with the DON/Keto/HBOT/Fenben combination (based on talking to him, reading his medical file from the Cancer agency and the publication of it all on a research institute’s website who worked with him during his journey.) He succeeds, I could be next. I’ll be the next poster child! And since you’ve waded through all this, who knows, you or your mate could be next in line. Soon enough, we might have an army of us stomping on the parliament lawn, urging the bigwigs to yank their heads out of their behinds and throw some money at Metabolic Theory, DON, and HBOT. But while they scratch their heads figuring out the “hows” and “whys,” the rest of us can get on with it.