Before Cancer
My dad was so healthy, extremely fit, eating home cooked food etc. we thought he was going to live forever... Ate at least 1 apple a day, even was taking low dose aspirin. (other than aspirin no other medication). Played tennis almost everyday. Could run 2 miles in 18 minutes.
Looking back though... I remember sometimes his eyes would go yellow.
Last couple of years he randomly would break out in mouth sores... But we thought they were just cold sore... But they were pretty bad.
Last couple of years my mom was complaining he was losing some weight. But this weight loss was very slow, and I thought it was just him growing older.
About two years earlier he tore the artery at the base of the skull, and doctors were shocked how good shape he was... like someone 20 years younger.
Diagnoses - and Progress
-In April of 2013 - my parent left my place to visit my sister. Just before they left, my dad was complaining that his stomach hurt. But everyone in my house was sort of fighting some stomach bug. I gave everyone honey, and this fixed everyones problem except my dads. But he was not too bothered by it.(or at least he was not saying anything to us)
-Blood Clot - while visiting my sister - he was complaining that his calf was hurting him. He was feeling very tired, but still managed to play tennis!
-Flu symptoms - the flu was going around, so he thought he had the flu. he felt very weak, and his calf was still bothering him quite a bit. He also had shortness of breath. (Sounded similar to shortness of breath I had at the time, and I kept telling him it was allergies?) I think it was 3 weeks later, he finally went to the doctor.
-May - Primary doctor sent him for a bunch of scans - and realized my dad is fighting something serious. That is where we found out that he had pancreatic cancer stage 4 in the tail. The scan showed it was everywhere, lung, spleen, one kidney, abdomen, liver. He also had clots everywhere. They started my dad on blood thinners because of the clots. He had major swelling in legs and abdomen. He was losing weight, but since he was retaining so much fluid, the scale was not going down extremely fast. So they did not put him on pig enzymes right away.
-June - My dad wanted to start chemo right away. Gemzar was given. He had a horrible time on it, barely could recover. After a couple of treatments, his red blood cells were super low, and could not get chemo. Doctors were worried he was bleeding somewhere. The doctors went through the mouth to check where the bleeding might be from. What they saw made them panic. Apparently the tumor was in the stomach as well. The tissue was so soft they could not do anything since it would just rip... i think they described it as jelly consistency. So they got out of there as fast as possible. Apparently, cat scans do not show tumors in the stomach. At this point my dad was in the ICU. They gave him a blood transfusion and stopped all blood thinners. He was also given pig enzymes and stool softeners to help the effects with chemo. His intestines shut down after chemo and could not have a bowel movement. This was a hard time for my mom as well, because everyone looked at her with eyes of sadness.
-My dad was just laying in bed, could not open his eyes, too weak to walk on his own, even to the bathroom. My mom was stressed. She was thinking we might have to put my dad in a hospice because she was afraid to leave him for even 5 minutes (but she needed to get groceries etc).
-I told my dad about AHCC and mushrooms. He brought it up to the doctors and nurses but they sort of dismissed it. Saying oh yah... this is shown to be good for breast cancer and prostate but not pancreatic.
-After 4 weeks of Gemzar - the scan showed everything grew a lot! The chemo did not work at all.
-I told my dad that he needs to try these mushrooms and that its for me not for him, because I want to know I tried everything I could to help him... and if he does not try them, then I will always wonder what if?
-Doctors did not know what treatment my dad would qualify but as it stood, he blood was bad and would have to come back in two weeks to see if his blood improved to see if he could be approved for a clinical trial. This was when we started 6 pills a day of the AHCC. Two before every meal.
-After two weeks, of taking the AHCC - he started getting better. He was opening his eyes more. He started talking a bit faster. He was able to hold his head up. When he went back to the doctor and they retested his blood, the nurse could not believe how much his blood improved. She thought the doctor gave him a blood booster, but did not tell my parent and forgot to write it down! (were my parents and I knew it was the AHCC).
-He was approved for clinical trial Folfox. He kept talking the AHCC, never stopping even when getting the chemo treatments. At this time I also got him to start drinking reishi tea (we get powdered reishi and do hot water extraction and drink with lemon). Once he started drinking this every day, the swelling in his legs went down and swelling in the abdomen went away pretty quickly.
-Reason I wanted to get my dad on reishi is because having pancreatic cancer, your chances of blood clots jumps up + chemo also increases the chances of clots. Since my dad already had tones of clots, and the doctors were afraid to give him any anti-clotting medication, i had to find something else... which was reishi!
-This chemo treatment is supposed to be alot harder than gemzar, with a huge list of symptoms. Well, my dad was barely having any problems with it. He was sort of tired day 2 and 3. That's it.
-He started getting more and more energy. And he was not getting the chemo brain... he was alert again, talking, excited about things... i got my dad back. He still needed to take pain killers every 4 hours, but it was ok. His tumor on the lung was the first one to go. He no longer was getting shortness of breath.
-We have added more mushrooms by hot water extraction into his tea. Main ingredient is reishi, but we added some turkey tails, chaga, maitake, shiitake, and lions mane. Only pill format is the AHCC - and I have him taking 10 a day... two before every meal. (along with his pig enzymes). And the tea is always taken with lemon. No other supplements are taken. Doctor wanted him to take iron, but luckily his stomach could not handle it (i don't want him taking iron since iron feeds cancer)
-When initially diagnosed his tumor count was 150,000 and it is now down to 6,000. The tumor in the lung is completely gone. Since he started Folfox treatment, all tumors stopped growing, no new tumors and they are all slowly shrinking. My theory is first we have to get the cancer out of his blood and then the tumors will follow... i bet once his count is closer to zero, that is when the tumors will shrink more rapidly.
-As of April 2014, the big milestone, is that he now only takes a pain killer maybe once in two weeks. Pain has decreased alot. He walks 2 hours a day, and is learning how to bake breads!(always on his feet)
-No one expected this type of recovery. But in my heart I did not think it was his time to go. His body otherwise was extremely strong, I knew he had a good foundation. Plus I think of him as extremely lucky person! :) Plus my mom had a dream that he was going to be ok :)
-My parents pushed to have more genetic testing done. It was found that my dad had the BRCA2 mutation(rare one... and only other persons with this mutation were found in the country he was born in!).
-Early July - my dads lowest tumor markers were 2600.
- Mid July - the tumor counters for the first time went up! to 5000. And two tumors grew a little bit. He was out of the trial and given wings to go where ever he wants for his treatment. My dad contacted contacted MD Anderson in Houston. They are very fast to respond and quickly get things moving.. they are definitely organized! They flew down there and got accepted into new clinical trial that targets the brca2 gene mutation! This is the clinical trial he is in http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT02042378
- August 13 was his first pill of Rucaparib :) doctors are very hopeful of this new drug!
The other pages under this section - shows what his tumor counts are... under the folfox treament tab
and the genetic testing results i put us as well.