Last week we received the fantastic news that after 3 long arduous months of therapy, sacrifice, and gut-wrenching tears, my tumors are shrinking.
In this blog, I will outline my treatment process for anyone suffering from Thymoma Cancer – an extremely rare disease for which no cure exists.
But my treatment plan (or a similar metabolic approach) will work for most cancers and if you or someone you know has been diagnosed with cancer that you would find great hope and a solid action plan from this blog.
September 16th 2020 –
I was taken to the emergency room for neurological discomfort (extreme weakness and shaking in my arms). X-rays revealed multiple masses and nodes on my lung pleura and thorax.
After my biospsy, I was diagnosed with recurrent Stage 4 Thymoma, a terminal illness and given 2-5 years to live. I was also diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, a neurological disease often associated with Thymoma.
NOTE: I had Thymoma in 2015 but after 6 cycles of chemotherapy and 30 days of radiation therapy I was declared in remission.
October 24th 2020 –
I began a strict Vegan diet.
I found “How to Starve Cancer” a book by Jane McLelland. Finding this book was an act of God. I was sitting on my chair, depressed and contemplating suicide when a voice that was not my own said “go to Amazon and search for cancer books.”
This is where I learned about off-label drugs. Get this book.
Off Label Drugs is a common term in medicine that refers to a drug that was invented for one purpose but is being prescribed for another purpose. This book is written by a stage 4 survivor who is alive and thriving today.
She recommends 4 drugs which I’m taking and will get into as we continue down the timelines.
December 7th 2020 –
I started my Metabolic Therapy at Integrative Medica with Dr Jake Schmutz in Salt Lake City (Cottonwood Canyon).
This is where it gets good. I was in treatment 3 days per week for roughly 4 hours per day usually from 2pm – 6pm. This was an alternating regiment of two different protocols.
Protocol One (One or two days per week, alternating):
- 60 mins Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy – I spent this time in meditation and prayer and focusing on positive, healing thoughts. I read every book on Metabolic Cancer Therapy that I could find.
- Intravenous Vitamin C (IVC) – High dose vitamin C creates oxidative stress for tumors. This was dripped into my veins for about 90 minutes while I read my books and spoke with other patients.
- Artemisinin Drip – a 15 minute drip that reacts with iron to for free radical and create a cytotoxic environment that kills cancer cells.
- IV Light Therapy – a combination of 3 different light waves that act as cleaners and disinfectants for the blood as well as restoring metabolic health to mitochondria. This took about 90 minutes and was done in combination with the IVC.
Protocol 2: (One or two days per week, alternating):
- 60 mins Hyberbaric Oxygen Therapy.
- IV Poly MVA – This stands for “minerals, vitamins, and alpha lipoic acids” and it’s a proprietary blend of a darkish fluid pumped right into your veins. It tastes like vitamins and you’ll smell like vitamins. This took about 90 minutes.
- IV DCA – Dichloroacetate sodium: DCA has been found to kill cancer cells by a newly discovered mechanism that appears to be common to several types of cancer. It works by turning on the natural cell suicide system (called apoptosis) which is suppressed in cancerous cells, thus allowing them to die on their own. DCA does not poison the cells like cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs. DCA also interferes with the cancer cell’s use of glucose, starving the cell of energy. At the same time, it does not starve healthy cells in the body of glucose. Also 90 minutes.
December 2020 – I began taking 4 off label drugs and anti-cancer supplements.
Jane’s book mentioned above have references to Care Oncology Clinic and other clinicians who can prescribe these drugs (because your primary care oncologist will most likely NOT prescribe these for you).
I take 5 new off label drugs that I’ve talked about at length in my blog. Let’s review them right now:
Metformin – Used often for diabetics, Metformin stops your body from producing glucose out of cards and sugar. This starves the tumors of the glucose they need to survive.
Fenbendazole – FenBen is a horse and dog-dewormer that you can buy from Petco, Chewy, or your vet with a prescription.
It attacks parasites and tumors are a parasite. They use your own body against you and FenBen counters this process.
There is a human version called Menbendazole and that’s what I’m taking because we use the Care Oncology Clinic and that’s what they ordered for us. There are many patients who simply order the dog version online and cancer survivor Joe Tippens of MyCancerStory.rocks went from stage 4 into remission with ONLY FenBen.
Doxycycline – is an anti-biotic designed to inhibit bacteria growth. In cancer patients, Doxy prevents bacterial from growing by stopping them from producing proteins. The effects of Doxy not only reduce tumor growth but also help in repairing the body from the effects of chemotherapy and radiation.
Atorvastatin – Like Lipitor were designed in the 70’s to treat high cholesterol and Trigycleride levels. However, statins in this class have also been shown to starve cancer cells by prohibiting them from creating their straw-like protrusions which draw nutrients from the surrounding areas thereby starving the cancer to death.
Get Jane’s book above and contact the Care Oncology Clinic to speak with a Doctor who is trained in this protocol and can help you get started.
I’m also taking a wide variety of all natural supplements that I continue to take to this day. I take almost 40 in one day and so I take them in 3 segments during the day: wake up, midday, and dinner. Although lately I’m getting so good at taking them that I often combine my 2 daytime handfuls.
The supplements are all natural and are outlined in Jane’s book and in her course. There’s also substantial references in the medical journals on anti-angiogenic supplements. Here’s my list:
GET MY GOOGLE SPREADSHEET HERE
December 23rd 2020
I was taken to the hospital for complications related to Covid-19. At that time they decided to do a CT Scan where it was revealed that all tumors had grown since the October scans.
This sucked but since we had just started our treatment about 2 weeks earlier, we were not really expecting any results just yet.
December 28th 2020
I began palliative chemotherapy with Alimta (Pemetrexed). This is a 15-minute drip that I take with a few additional supplements – b12 shots, Folic Acid (but I take Folate bc Folic Acid is a synthetic), and I also take 4 mg Dexamthasone twice per day on the day before chemo, the day of chemo, and the day after chemo.
Chemo is once every 3 weeks for 6 cycles.
It was during this time that I began to read a lot more about cancer and the metabolic treatment plans that were getting more results than chemotherapy. The books below absolutely changed my life and perhaps saved my life:
January 10th – We switched from a Vegan Diet to a Therapeutic Keto Diet.
After reading these books, I realized that while a vegan diet had many strong benefits, the real power in fighting cancer came from a Ketogenic Diet. I began to follow Ben Azadi and Dr. Mindy Pelz’s podcasts to learn more about the diet and I got cookbooks.
I also got a Keto-Mojo device and the CarbManager App and began measuring and tracking all my food. At first, my goal was to keep my Ketones at 3.0 mmol or above. I continue to eat no fruit, no sugar, no carbs.
At all. Ever.
That’s also when I read more of Dr. Seyfrieds work and Dr Don D’aggostino along with Keto for Cancer and I learned about GKI. GKI is Glucose Ketone Index and is a more effective measurement for therapeutic ketosis.
The Keto Diet was another life changer – everything changed at this point. From the moment my body got fat-adapted I began to feel great again. My energy came back up and my face got color again. My attitude was full of power and grace and I no longer felt like a cancer patient.
With Keto, I began a very high fat diet with intermittent fasting. To this day and probably for a very long time, I am on this diet:
- 80% Fat, 10% Protein, 10% Carbs.
- Intermittent Fasting from 7:30pm to 11:30am the next day. I still drink black coffee every morning as it does not break your fast.
- Mostly whole foods. Very little “snacks” or store-bought keto foods.
- 72 Hour Fasting During Chemo – this is hard but WOW! I love it. Fasting makes my mind and body sharp. I’m not active during these days and I don’t think I’ll do chemo for much longer but I think I’ll do 3-day fasting cleanses for the rest of my life.
I start fasting at 7pm the day before chemo and I continue to fast through the day of chemo until the day after chemo at around 7pm. This dramatically reduces the side affects of the chemotherapy virtually eliminating them while making the chemo more effective.
I track my blood ketones almost twice per day but these days my body “knows” when Im in therapeutic ketosis and I’m almost always in the highest level of ketosis.
March 5th 2020 – Our first follow-up CT Scans
As of this writing, I’ve just received my first CT Scan results. It’s been roughly 3 months of treatment and I did get Covid PLUS a Covid-related illness in November/December so there was a little break in the treatment and in the healing process.
But as the dust settles from the results of my last scan, I am happy to report that ALL of my tumors have decreased in size. One of my tumors is gone completely, another one is almost gone.
Two of the biggest ones have decreased by 30-40% and another one by 60%. In total between all measured tumors my tumor load has decreased by 32%.
Here are my test results (NOTE the two typo’s that they made – it took around 72 hours to correct these mistakes):
I also created a drawing that outlines my the 7 different masses that they are measuring and how much they shrunk and by how much. The darkened areas represent their original size.
Total load reduction is 29% but when you cut out the very small one at 16% and divide by the rest is goes up to 32%.
So as of today I am still:
- Going to Chemo once every 3 weeks for at least 2 more cycles.
- Intermittent Fasting Every Weekday
- Eating a Keto Diet and testing my ketones
- Taking daily supplements
- Taking daily off-label drugs
- Doing Metabolic 3X’s per day
- Working out after dinner to reduce glucose
- Practicing gratitude
- Prayer and Thanksgiving
- Sauna and Meditation
And our goal is to be in remission from Stage 4 Cancer in 6 months.