Integrative Cancer Clinic
January 2018
About one week into the new year, I noticed a small lump growing on the scar left by the black salve. Over a period of several days, it started growing noticeably. This really freaked me out! Now the tumor was growing on the outside of my breast!!! I was in a complete panic! I had no idea what to do. Yes, yes, I know . . . . I should have had surgery 18 months prior and this never would have happened. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Didn’t matter now. I had to deal with the situation I was in. I knew I was in way over my head and could no longer try to self-treat this cancer. I started researching Mexican cancer clinics. They sounded wonderful: offering a plethora of anti-cancer treatments in spa-like settings, while claiming fabulous success rates. The problem was that they wanted large amounts of cash upfront (one wanted $30,000 prior to starting treatment). That was a no-go for me as I did not have that kind of money, nor did I know anyone who did. While researching the Mexican clinics; however, I happened to read the comment of someone who highly recommended an integrative cancer clinic in Arizona that was getting excellent results with cancer patients. I checked out this clinic’s website and was quite impressed by the patient testimonials. Their primary course of treatment is Insulin-Potentiated Chemotherapy (IPT).
Insulin potentiation therapy involves administering insulin at the same time as chemotherapy drugs, with the idea that lower chemotherapy doses are then needed because insulin lets more of the drug enter cells. IPT requires only 10-25% of a normal dose of chemotherapy, thus sparing the patient the side effects of chemo, while effectively killing the cancer cells.
I felt like this was where I needed to be to effectively deal with my situation. After speaking with the doctor in charge of new patients, he commented that I had Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) after reviewing my initial pathology report from 1998. Since I had never seen an oncologist the first time around, I never knew that! He claimed that his clinic had an excellent record in treating TNBC and was confident that they could help me. That clinched it for me. After some hurried arrangements, I flew to Arizona and had my first IPT treatment on February 12, 2018.
February-April 2018
The cost of this therapy was daunting: $5,200+ a week!! I took every credit card I owned with me and applied for a couple more. I also had to rent a furnished apartment and a car to get to and from the clinic (it’s strictly out-patient only). The cost of the treatments hung over my head like a sword, but I felt I had to do what I needed to in order to survive. My son-in-law (God bless him!) set up a GoFundMe Page for me, which brought in around $6,000+ from family and friends, for which I am forever grateful. As my time there progressed, I noticed they were encouraging me to take more and more prescription drugs for other things (hypertension, appetite booster), which made me rather uncomfortable. I also noticed that several of the women there being treated for breast cancer had little to no head hair. This really upset me because this clinic gave the unmistakable impression that their clients experienced very few, if any, side effects from their low-dose chemotherapy treatments. That was a major reason why I selected treatment at this particular clinic. So you can imagine my shock and utter horror when one month after starting treatment here, my hair started coming out in handfuls! This was NOT supposed to happen!! I felt betrayed!! Not only did losing my hair mean losing an important part of my femininity; I also now had the appearance of a sick, cancer patient———which was the very last thing that I wanted.
Despite being given a somewhat semi-sensible diet in the manual I was given upon arrival at the clinic, I was quite surprised to be told that I should eat whatever appealed to me so that I didn’t lose weight. Never mind that the food I might choose might feed the cancer; the clinic, in my opinion, just didn’t want their clients keeling over or looking emaciated since that would be bad for business. Another big surprise was being told that we could load up on sugar at the end of the IPT treatment. This was supposed to act as a trojan horse to get the chemo into the cancer cells, since cancer loves glucose. Eating THAT much sugar, however, didn’t seem right to me; but I happily indulged my craving for sugar with chocolate cupcakes, donuts, waffles with syrup, etc. during what the staff called “happy hour” at the end of the IPT treatment.
After 4-6 weeks of IPT treatments, the exterior tumor on my breast had indeed vanished. I was thrilled! The treatments seemed to be paying off, despite my red blood cell counts being low. The staff didn’t feel they were low enough to warrant additional treatment, but it concerned me nonetheless. I was referred to a wound clinic for the deep hole the black salve left from my attempt to remove the other tumor. The doctor at the wound clinic was very helpful and said he would do his best to help me heal it, although he really felt I should have a mastectomy since his pathology lab reported finding cancer in the wound.
My daughter, son-in-law and grandson were with me in Arizona for my first ten days of treatment and it was wonderful to have them there. They were and continue to be extremely supportive and were great morale boosters. But they eventually had to return home and I was left by myself to cope with the treatments. I severely underestimated the emotional and mental toll this trip to Arizona would take on me. In hindsight I realized I should have had someone there with me for emotional support. Every other patient had family or a friend with them to cope with the ordeal, while I had no one. It was very difficult being in a strange city while dealing with the uncertainty of cancer and also worrying about my financial situation. To top it off, I did not take well to the Arizona climate and terrain. I was used to the lush greenery, the humid air and the beaches of Florida; whereas Arizona was barren, extremely arid (to the point of causing daily nose bleeds) and brown, brown, BROWN! The brown barren landscape ran into the brown mountains, while all of the homes seemed to be brown. Had no one in Arizona ever heard of color??? To say that I missed home terribly was an extreme understatement!
After several weeks at this clinic, my weekly blood work revealed that my red blood counts were low and that I was, in fact, anemic. Unfortunately, the doctors glossed over this in my monthly meeting with them due the fact that they felt the numbers “weren’t that low”. Despite the exterior tumor disappearing, the tumor inside my breast was still quite large. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I would need to remain at the clinic for at least a few more months in order for this tumor to be gone or at least substantially reduced in size. Since my credit cards were now maxed out, I knew it was imperative for me to return home at the end of the apartment and car rental leases. I absolutely could not afford to stay on any longer and I did not feel at all comfortable asking friends and family for more money. So . . . at my final meeting with the doctors, I informed them that I would be leaving the clinic for home that day due to financial inability to remain there any longer. The doctor that had so warmly greeted me upon my arrival at the clinic proceeded to tell me what a foolish move leaving would be when I had a “deadly disease”. He proceeded to fill me with more fear-based thoughts until I left that room extremely shaken and uncertain about my decision to leave. Did he think that berating me like that would magically put the funds in my pocket that would enable me to stay on? Ironically, that same day I ran into a female patient that had been there for five months for treatment for the same type of breast cancer that I had. She had been allowed to return home after the remission of her cancer; however, she was now back because her circulating tumor cells were vastly elevated and she was advised to return for additional treatment. She informed me that she and her husband had to take out a second mortgage on their home to fund this new round of treatment! This indicated to me that IPT would be something she would need to be doing on an on-and-off basis for a protracted period of time; something I could never afford to do. Given this, I flew home extremely upset by the doctor’s parting words. Yet I was glad to be going home and relieved that at least I had gotten rid of the exterior tumor on my breast and the deep would in my breast from the black salve was slowly but surely healing.