WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Wednesday, September 18th

Sorry it has taken so long to get to the blog but I have been trying to get everything put back in it's place after our journey home.  I was unable to post anything to the blog on Friday the 13th because the internet was down at the clinic.   The staff thought maybe it had to do with the rain we had that day.  I kept checking all day and into the evening.

We had our final meeting with Dr, Weber on Friday shortly after lunch.   He went over all the labs that were done showing how everything had improved.  He stated at that time that Mike did not have to schedule a return trip back to the clinic for treatment.  He did say, however, that we could come back just to visit. He advised Mike to have an MRI test in 4-6 weeks and a CEA test done with both results being sent to him at that time for review.  He stated that based on the findings, he could then advise Mike what he needed to do to continue with his healing.  He was very pleased with the progress that Mike made while he was there.
As I was realizing that we would be leaving Marinus am Stein soon and thinking about what Dr. Weber had done for Mike, I could feel my eyes welling up.  I could see Dr. Weber watching me and that he was aware of my emotions.   We all got up from our seats, and Dr. Weber came around his desk and hugged me.   I thanked him for having this wonderful clinic for people all over the world who have been diagnosed with this dreadful disease to come.   This would be the last time that we would see Dr. Weber as he was leaving the clinic mid-afternoon to go out of town to give a lecture.

As we left his office, Ivan and Kate were sitting in the hall waiting for their turn to go in and speak to Dr. Weber.   They could tell that I had been crying and thought we had been given bad news.  I had to say that it was good news, but that I was sad to be leaving the clinic and all the friends that we have made.    Kate and Ivan also then ended up crying.   Mrs. Dr. Weber was standing there as well and was witnessing what was going on.  I had to go over and hug her too and thank her as well for establishing the clinic.   Mike then had to finish up with his treatment for the day with hyperthermia while I went and found Christy to give her the news.   We hugged each other and celebrated the good news.       We then headed down to the dinning room for supper.  I had gone down before Mike and everyone was looking and waiting for him to walk in so they could congratulate him.     Leah and Christy were there to give Mike a hug.   We then retired to the landing to continue with the celebration,  Shirley's niece, who is in the military in Italy, came for a visit and since there was an opening in the clinic, the Webers let her stay there.  She was very nice and seemed to have a very fun personality.

My stomach was feeling upset so I excused myself to go up to the room to see if the internet was up so I could do the blog for the day.   Since I could not get on the internet, I decided to go to bed.  Mike came to bed around 10:00.   I was extremely sick the rest of the night and all the next day.   Mike made the nursing staff aware of what I was going through, and Stefka and Mrs. Dr. Weber kept checking on me.  I was running a fever.  Mrs. Dr. Weber gave me a nice reprimand for not calling the night nurse.  She stated that is why they have a night nurse.  They gave me medication twice that day to help with what I was experiencing.  I stayed in bed and slept until the next morning,

Mike and the others went to the train station to go up the mountain.  However, when they got to the station, someone who had gone up earlier told them that it was foggy and the view was not good,  Therefore, everyone decided not to waste their money.  Shirley's niece then took Dennis and Shirley shopping.  Mike, Christy, Leah, and Clare headed back to the clinic.  Along the way, they found the Pub that Chris from France would go to between meals and treatments to have a beer or two.   They had cappuccino and pastries.  I did get a shower and attempted to visit with everyone in the dining room while they ate dinner.  However, the smell of food got to me, and I had to go back up to our room and go to bed.   Mike stayed up and then said his goodbyes to everyone before calling it a night.  My stomach was still upset at this point.

Luckily I had basically packed everything earlier in the day on Friday because I would not have been able to do so being sick.   We arranged for the night nurse to wake us up at 5:00 the next morning to be ready for our 6:15 taxi pick up.  When I woke up, I was feeling so much better.  I was so thankful that I did not have to be flying home while sick.   Leah got up at 5:30 to say goodbye.   She came in and sat with us for a few minutes. Again, there were some tears as we said our final goodbyes.  The taxi arrived on time and drove us to the airport.   Going through the terminal and the process for boarding went smoothly.  It was easier than when we arrived and tried to make our way to pick up our bags and find our driver.   The return trip was a little more bumpy than the first flight.  We left Germany on 09/15 at 9:45 AM and landed in Newark on 09/15 at 12:45. PM.   It was a 9 hour flight.   Gary and Clare were there with open arms to pick us up.  We were so happy to see them.  We stopped for a quick bite to eat on the way and arrived home around 5:15 PM.   We had arranged for a friend to pick up our dogs from our groomer so we did not have that additional drive to pick them up and bring them home.   They were so happy to see us as we were them.

If you know of anyone who has cancer and has been told nothing further can be done or know someone who wants a better solution for treating their cancer, please have them check out German Cancer Breakthrough: Your Guide to Top German Alternative Clinics by Andrew Schloberg.   Without reading this book which reviews alternative cancer treatment facilities in Germany and surrounding areas, we would have never known that gentler, effective cancer treatment was possible   The services are not covered by insurance, but you will find that it is a much better solution than the traditional, cancer treatment prescribed by physicians here in the states and other countries.  I will continue a blog post when we have the results of Mike's blood testing and PET scan which is scheduled for October 16th.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

Tomorrow will give an update on the the last days in Germany and our trip home.  It is late, and I am tired from our flight home.

DAY 18 OF TREATMENT 09/12/13

Thursday, September 12th


9:00 PM
Today it has rained all day long and been quite chilly.  I just heard something which sounded like fireworks going off.  I am not sure if that is thunder bouncing off the Alps or not.  I will have to ask someone in the morning if that was what it was.

Mike got all his treatments and massage in before lunch.   We did not meet with Dr. Weber today to get all of Mike's records and final plan.   His medical records have not yet been translated so he wants us to meet with him tomorrow morning.   I know I have said many times how wonderful I feel Dr Weber is, but I wanted to make another comment about him   Every morning after breakfast and while Mike is undergoing his treatments, I sit on the 3rd floor landing to check out Facebook,  my email, start this blog, etc.  It is about 9:00 in the morning.   That is the time that Dr. Weber comes in.   His office is on the other side of the landing and our room located on the opposite side.   He comes off the elevator and comes over to shake my hand and says, " Ahh  Frau Lord, how are you this morning?"   Today, he had a huge stack of mail and magazines under his left arm and was carrying a medical container in his right hand.  He set down the things in his right hand so he could shake my hand.   He just makes himself so open and available to everyone here.  He then goes into his office and changes into scrub and his Birkenstock sandals.  He may walk by me several times while I am sitting there, and each time he will do something, whether it be raising his eyebrows or giving me the thumbs up symbol, to acknowledge me,

The dinning room was full this morning.   There was another German woman who came and an Oriental woman from near Sacramento who has breast cancer.   The clinic make it nice with the seating assignments by seating the English speaking patients with each other and then German speaking patients together.   Because we do not know German, we cannot find out the history of the German patients.  Lunch today was Bavarian marinated roast with homemade pasta and then pasta with cheese roasted onions, and ruccola. Mike and I both had the 2nd one which is the vegetarian choice,   The ruccola is another name for arugula.   When I looked this up it actually said this is considered an aphrodisiac.  Imagine that!  The marinated roast was actually sauerbraten.  Dessert was a fruit milkshake which was made with raspberries.   These are not as thick as we have them in the states.

Dave and his wife left today to go back home to England.   Dave came around to each of us to say good bye and I gave him a hug.  I could feel the tears wanting to spill over.  He will return in 8 weeks for further treatment.  Mrs. Weber and her two sons took them to the airport back home.  The clinic provides transportation from and back to the airport either with the clinic van or arranges to have pick up by a taxi.   They then also take care of the fee for this.

We met with Verena after lunch to pay our bill for our stay.   We previously wired a deposit of 12,000 euros which was approximately $16,300.   The remainder of our balance was 3797 euros or $5,055.   Our flight was $3,000.    We feel this was money well spent.   If you consider that Mike's one day of treatment back home costs, for one 8 hour day of chemo, $37,000.  We got a bargain here.   It is a shame that our insurances in the states will not consider covering this type of treatment.  With our savings and the help and generosity of so many friends and people we don't even know, we were able to make this trip a reality and get the treatment that Mike needs.

After lunch and then paying our bill, Christy, Mike, and I went with Ivin and Kate to Austria.   We went into a town called Kufstein.   Kate pointed out the moment we crossed the Germany/Austria line so we knew when we were in another country.  Kufstein is only about a 1/2 hour drive from the clinic.  We walked through a cute little village with cobble stone like streets and checked out some of the stores.    We went into a restaurant and had beverages.  Mike had espresso and I had hot chocolate,   We found a multi-level mall and checked out a couple of stores there.   It would have been beautiful had the sun just been out, and we had more time.   That did not stop us from making the most of our time there.

We got back to the clinic a little late.  They were again wondering where we were and if we would be there for dinner.   Dinner was mediterranean vegetable pan with basmati rice.  The vegetables were a mixture of carrots, squash, red and green peppers, onions, and mushrooms (which I picked out and gave to Mike). Soups today were clear vegetable and creamy kohlrabi with truffle.   The soups have all been very good. The creamy soups are all strictly liquid.  I had one soup for lunch and then the other for dinner.  Mike passed on both of them.

As usual, a few of us headed up to the 2nd floor landing for our evening conversation before retiring for the evening.

DAY 17 OF TREATMENT 09/11/13

Wednesday, September 11th

My heart is sad today thinking back 12 years ago when our country suffered the most horrendous attack on our soil and country.   I paused at 2:45, our time here in Germany, for a moment of silence to honor all those innocent people who lost their lives.    We will NEVER forget you.   

When we were in meeting with Dr. Weber to go over Mike's other test results, we mentioned to him about today being the 12th anniversary of 9/11.  He showed us a poster that he has on his bookshelf of the Twin Towers.  He said he can remember watching that on TV.  All Mikes other results were within the normal ranges.   He did say Mike was Magnesium deficient so he was going to start him on that.

I am sorry if there are some of you that tuned in earlier today to read the blog and were unable to do so.   My blogger account had been blocked because of some unusual activity.  It took me forever to try to get my account unblocked because the recovery method they wanted to use was to send a text message or a voice call to the cell phone they had on file.  Unfortunately, this is my home cell phone (which I have with me), but that phone does not have international coverage.  I kept working and working trying to get this straightened out because there was no way for them to contact me that way.  I was really stressing out about this because I thought how am I going to be able to share the happenings here with everyone.  But anyway..... I am back.

On top of that, I was already somewhat in a teary mood thinking about the significance of today, and then we received wonderful news about Christy.  Her tumor markers have substantially gone down.  Once she sat down and actually vocalized this and let it sink in,  the realization of what Dr Weber said actually hit her.  She let the emotion inside of her out and that brought tears to my eyes as well.   I was so happy for her.   It was then Dave's turn.  He went in to go over his MRI results with the doctor.   ( In the mornings, I sit on the landing outside of Dr, Weber's office.   Whenever anyone came out from their meeting with the doctor, I had always been apprehensive to look them in the eye in case they had not gotten good news. )  I had my head down working on my computer, and I looked up to see Dave's wife, Jennifer, giving me the thumbs up signal.  The tumors in his liver have shrunk.   He still has a lot going on in his pancreas.   They said that Dr. Weber wants him to come back in 8 weeks.   I have been crying every time someone gets their results, and Christy tonight said it best, "We all have a vested interest in each other".   This is so true.   We have become so close and entwined in one another's story and feelings that what affects them, affects us.

After lunch today Christy, Mike, and I started to walk into town to get some exercise and check out some other stores further in town that we did not venture to earlier.  It was chilly enough that we were wearing long sleeves.  It is supposed to rain the next two days so we wanted to get the walk in while we could.   We also checked out some locations for Christy to stay for the last 3 days of her stay here.  She started out in the clinic, but to cut down on the expense, she moved into a farmhouse where she is renting a room.  We went into the hotel here in Brannenburg to take a look at a couple of the rooms. They were quite small, but most of the time is spent here at the clinic so the rooms are enough to sleep in.  She has found a couple of openings so she was productive in her search.   This gave us some knowledge of what is available that can be passed onto others who may want to come here.

Today's menu:

Lunch was creamy asparagus or clear soup with parsnips.  Mike had the creamy soup.  I skipped that today. His main meal was Tyrol Onion roast with potatoes and butter beans.   He gave his steak to Dennis, who I said was the steak and potatoes kind of guy.  His butter beans were actually French green beans.  My meal was Sauteed Vegetables.  I was able to fill a soup bowl with the mushrooms that were in this and gave them to Mike to eat.  I just cannot eat these whole or sliced.   Dessert was chocolate creme with Pear.  It was a chocolate pudding with cut up pear

Dinner was cold buffet which was thinly sliced cheese and cold meat, rolls and butter, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. hard boiled eggs halved, pickles and then fruit.

After dinner, we all went up to the 1st floor landing to talk and ran into Ivan and Kate.  Ivan was having trouble with his catheter and had blood in his urine.  He came back to the clinic to have the nurse check this. She in turn called Dr. Weber who said he was coming in.   Dr. Weber can in and made some adjustments to the catheter which made a big difference.   They were really concerned about this.   We were all so happy that it was not anything major.  Not long after that everyone called it a night around 8:00 and retired to their rooms for the night.

DAY 16 OF TREATMENT 09/10/13

Tuesday, September 10th

9:00 AM
Today is starting off sunny and beautiful.  They are calling for PM rain.  Mike started his day with hyperthermia  and now he is in having local hyperthermia.   They have put both of the machines on him today which he states is the first time they have done that.  One is projected at his lungs and the other at his liver.

Dave from England goes today around 10:00 to have his MRI test. He has pancreatic cancer and had been basically told to just go home and die.  We are hoping for the best for him and his wife, Jennifer, who joined him here on Tuesday.  Dave leaves for home on Thursday.

4:00 PM
Have some more good news.  I won't put this in sequence of the day's events because I want to get it in now.  As we were waiting for Christy and Leah to go for a walk, Dr. Weber came by and said Mike's CEA level is now down to 9.  He said he would show us the rest of the results tomorrow.  I think if there was anything that was not good, he would have told us that at this time.  He wanted to make sure we knew what the CEA level was from yesterday's blood test.  So far no one has gotten any bad news.

Today's lunch was King Prawns (shrimp) for Mike with Tai rice.   I had mushroom rotelli which was ravioli. I cut the first one open hoping I could pick out the mushrooms but they were all ground up.  So I tried it. They were actually not bad.  In the back of my head, I kept thinking these are filled with mushrooms, but I finished all but two of them.  The soup we both had was creamy vegetable which looked like tomato soup but smelled and tasted like vegetable soup.  Dessert was baked apple rings with vanilla ice cream.  That was very good.  Our dinner mate, Dennis is a pretty big guy.  I think he may actually be pickier about his food than I am if you can actually believe that.  He is basically just a meat and potatoes kind of guy.  He won't even eat anything off the salad bar.  His favorite thing so far has been the over easy eggs he gets at breakfast.

Mike was going to take Leah up the mountain to Wendelstein because she has not yet been up there. However, she slept wrong last night and had the masseuse try to work it out.  She had a hot pack to this area,  and he told her to keep her neck warm.   Because it is supposed to rain and it is 15 degrees cooler up there, they decided not to go today.

Instead Christy, Leah, Mike, and I walked in to town.  Along the way we stopped at the deli so Leah could purchase some coconut milk.   She has talked Mike into drinking this as well.   We ran into the woman who helped us purchase tickets on our first train ride to Rosenheim.  Her name is Gizelle.  We also saw her the other day when we went to the grocery store.  She asked how everyone was doing.  She lives near the clinic in Flintsbach.  She is a very nice and friendly person.   She was with her husband so we got to meet him.   She was wondering how we, the English speaking patients, were doing here as far as the language barrier was concerned.  She thought since we had trouble with the train ticket and with the cab driver that maybe the clinic could use her to be an interpreter/liason and help with travel arrangements, day trips, etc.  We all thought that would be a good idea.   She said that she might call the clinic to inquire about this.

As we walked further into town, we ran into Kate and Ivan who were also out getting a bit of exercise and checking out the shops.   Ivan offered us a ride back to the clinic if we wanted it, but we did not take him up on the offer.  They are both so very nice.   It kept lightly raining off and on as we walked.  Luckily we got back to the clinic when the skies decided to open up more and rain harder.

6:00
Dinner tonight was vegetable mushroom pan with potatoes which was just stir fry vegetables/mushrooms with new potatoes.  I also had the consomme with dumpling for my soup, Mike stayed with the creamy vegetable soup.  Dave and his wife were in the dinning room for supper, and he appeared to be down.  He has not yet heard about his MRI results, and I think the wait is making him anxious.

It is still raining, and I think it will continue into the night.   I can hear the ran on the roof, and it is a nice sound. Maybe that will lull us to sleep tonight.  For now, I think I will spend the remainder of the evening just resting and reading.

DAY 15 OF TREATMENT 09/09/13

Monday, September 9th

We begin week 3.   Mike was able to have all his shots and blood drawn this morning.  His BioMat treatment, ozone therapy, and his infusions were all able to be done at the same time today.  I guess that saves him an hour of treatment when these things can all be done together.   He is in his massage right now and his hot liver treatment here in the room is at 11:00.

We awoke today to rain and upon checking weather.com it appears that today we are 100% chance of rain this morning.  At the moment, it is not raining.  The afternoon is to be partly sunny with a high of 65 degrees They are calling for rain on Tuesday and Thursday with the remainder of the week being partly cloudy.  The highs for the rest of the week are in the low to middle 60s,  We had such beautiful weather yesterday and the past week that we really can't complain.  It is really a good day to read the book that Leah gave me.  It's that kind of day you just want to lay around and not do anything,

I forgot to mention yesterday that we had a 2nd new arrival while we were in Prien.   She is English but lives in France.  Her name is Clare Trijon.   Have not yet really had an opportunity to speak to her to find out her story.  Lindy leaves here tomorrow and is headed to Paris for a few days with her niece who lives in Frankfurt.  So.... another one in the gang will be leaving us.   Ivan and Kate are hoping to be able to move into the clinic.  There were a couple whose name had been crossed off the the list that we order our menu from so if that is definite, they can move in.  I think that would be the best thing for him as he still has some continued bleeding from his kidneys into his catheter.  If he is here and has a problem, it can be addressed right away.  I know that will make Kate feel better.

8:45 PM
Lunch and supper tonight were repeats so I will not comment on that.   Spent the day reading my book.  Did not venture outside at all.  Tonight after supper Leah, Lindy, Christy, Dennis, Shirley, Mike, and I spent the evening in the dining room talking.  They had champagne for Lindy's last night.  Nothing really exciting happened today.  We will see  tomorrow if Mike's blood test from today have any different results.

DAY 14 OF TREATMENT 09/08/13

Sunday,  September 8th

Well today we lost 3 patients who left to go back home:  Chris from France,  Zoe,  and Chris T.   Chris from France was a real character and made the time here with him fun.  He always had us laughing at his actions or by what he said.  Today at 8:45 AM he asked for a beer and had his 2nd one before he left around 11:00.   He would usually have wine between breakfast and lunch at one of the local pubs, then have wine with lunch, go back to the pub in the afternoon, and then have wine with dinner.   Everyone kept saying that that must have been part of the protocol that helped get rid of his tumor.  There is something called vesteril in wine that is actually good for cancer patients to have.  Everyone was here to give hugs and say goodbye to him.  Zoe and Chris can't wait to get home to their 4 year old daughter, Ava.

Everyone finished their treatments by lunch time.  Lunch today was creamy dill soup.  Mike had "Greek Cevapi" with olive and sheep cheese with basmati rice.   Mike said they were like meatballs in a red sauce.  I had Asian Vegetable WOK with Rice.   The vegetables were in a yellow sauce that seemed to have Indian spices.   Dessert was Peach Melba which was a scoop of vanilla ice cream with 2 peach slices  and whipped topping in a sauce.

We had two new arrivals just before lunch.   Their names are Shirley and Dennis.  They are from Iowa. Shirley has ovarian cancer.  They were basically told they have done everything they can do for her.  She has been dealing with her cancer since 2008.   Dennis states he is a bit skeptical about treatment but said there is nothing left that they know of to do.   We told them about the amazing results that everyone got this past week.

After lunch Ivan and Kate took Christy, Mike, and me to Prien to Lake Chiemsee.  Ivan has a car that he rented when he got here.   The car he had was a Mercedes so it was my first time riding in this make of cae. We all got in the car and took off not know exactly how to get there.  We decided to take the scenic route. Although it was very pretty countryside to go through, the roads were very winding.   I was sitting in the backseat behind Ivan and Mike was up front navigating.    We were using the GPS system in the car which kept trying to put us on the Autoban.   We kept having to make adjustments to our drive.  We got to Prien and I said to MIke that the ride made me feel like I was sea sick (dizziness in the head) and I felt like my arms were sweating.   Even though my stomach did not feel sick, I was afraid it could come to that.  Mike said he felt the same way.  We got tickets for the ferry ride and boarded the 100+ foot  3 level ferry that took us out to an island named Herreninsel.    Here there is a castle named Herrenchiemsee.   Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to take a tour before we had to head back to the clinic.   We walked around some of the grounds,  We saw an old monastery and another old church.  We then sat down at the outside restaurant. There Kate and I had apple strudel with vanilla ice cream which was very good.  The rest of the group had beverages.  We got the ferry back at 4:50 PM and headed back to the clinic. This time we were going to take the Autoban so it would not be so windy, but Mike had heard the GPS say something about a back up on the Autoban which we could actually see.  So we again had to get redirected back to Brannenberg.  This time I sat in the middle of the backseat so that I could see where we were going - this helped.   The ride back did not seem as bad.

We knew we were going to be late for dinner and were not sure if we could still actually get anything.  Ivan waited at the clinic to see if we could still get dinner.   If not,  he was going to take us back into town to an Italian restaurant.   The rest of the patients were still in the dining room, so we let Ivan know that.  He and Kate stay outside of the clinic in a farmhouse and eat their dinner meals there.   We were scolded somewhat by the waitress who does not speak English.  She pointed at the clock when we walked in.  She is able to understand enough that we got lost and that was why we were late.  By this time they were out of soup. Dinner was Chinese finger food which I did not eat so luckily I had that apple strudel.   I ended up eating a 1/2 slice of watermelon and gave my meal to Mike,  He said he liked it.

Unfortunately we did not get back to the clinic in time to say goodbye to Zoe and Christ T.   We saw them both in the morning between breakfast and lunch so at least we got to see them then.   Before we left to go to Prien, Chris was actually here using the Internet and I was able to give him a hug.  Zoe was over in the cottage they stayed in while they were here.

We had a chance to further talk to Dennis and Shirley and learn more about their situation before we all separated for the night.  Tomorrow starts week 3 of treatment.  Mike will have his blood drawn again tomorrow so we will see if there are any updates with that.

                                           Kate and Ivan on ferry boat ride to island.

                                            View of lake and the Alps from the ferry.

                                           Ivan, me, Kate, and Christy waiting for ferry.

                                           The ferry.

                                           Mike standing next to huge aloe vera plant.