When last we updated... Kathie had appointments at Duke and with one Dr. Buttar (homeopathic doc) set up. (sorry, not as fancy as the NBC 2 minute recaps, but it's all I've got).
The appointment with both Duke and the homeopathic doc got moved up. Kathie and Bob went to Duke to discuss clinical trials. As of now, it doesn't look like anything will open up for 3-4 weeks and at the moment, Kathie is not eligible because she's a big sluggish - but they hope to remedy that. Their opinion was that she was getting nauseous more often because her liver was inflamed - so they prescribed a strong anti-inflammatory to help reduce that. Kathie (aka Dr. DuCharme) had failed to mention she was spitting up some green (mucus) - hey, you wanted the details - and so they also put her on a Z-pak since she may have some minor infection. They also suggested to reduce her nausea to get her moving more quickly in the morning - getting something in her stomach early on and then having more snacks throughout the day. She also needs to be getting up more - so Bob and the rest of the fam have been working on keeping her up more and getting her to move around. Yesterday she had such a good day that she collected pine cones with the twins, unpacked some boxes with her sisters and went for a walk! The few days before that though, were not so good - nausea, tired, a little bit of a slug;) Hopefully, she's in for some more good days.
She'll go back in two weeks for a check up to see if she's on the right path to be a candidate and to see if one of the trials has opened up.
So what about our dear Dr. Buttar - the homeopathic guy? Well, something smelled rather fishy when Bob got letters about high payments (before even going) and Eddie found a blog informing us he was currently being sued for various issues surrounding his practice. Needless to say, the appointment has been canceled. We're looking into other homeopaths around the area, but it's hard to wipe that bad taste out of your mouth.
As for diet - Seinfeld had the soup nazi.... we have Christen, the veggie nazi - only, instead of not getting any, you don't get much else:) Seriously, Chris has been doing an amazing job of transforming Kathie's diet to fruits and veggies (she's following some diet plan I believe - I'll better update that when I'm in NC in a week), and the guests have also been enjoying her gourmet cooking. Eileen, Kathie's sister, was raving about the "ice cream" that was entirely fruit (no dairy or wheat on Kathie's diet, I believe).
** Again, friendly reminder to incoming guests: please defer to Christen on the diet plan. Though I'm sure a cooking break would be appreciated - it only is if it sticks with the plan. These kinds of diets are STRICT and it's like putting water into gasoline if something she's not supposed to have gets sneaked in (that's a word?! snuck isn't according to spell check). Your pot roast may be the best on this side of the Mississippi, but it has no place in a vegan diet;)
That being said, with all those fruits and veggies - I'm sure help with washing, chopping and grocery shopping would be greatly appreciated.
On another note, I did not mean to make it sound like we are closing ourselves off from more alternatives, trials, etc information if you have some. Eddie has searched clinicaltrials.gov for NC, TX and he found some in the Netherlands. If you find a clinical trial in your state that you think we should absolutely check out - please e-mail one of us the links to look into it. Also, we're open to the world, so if something looks that amazing (i.e. worth spending $1000s in plane tickets), let us know. We're currently not interested in anything that includes Camptosar, Avastin, Oxaliplatin - as these are drugs which have had no effect on Kathie and seem futile to keep returning to.
There is one book we are looking for - and if somebody already has it and would lend it to us... Sick and Tired... Reclaim Your Inner Terrain by Robert O. Young. I believe the diet we are trying to follow is in there - and we have a website summary, but clearly, the book would be more helpful.
P.S. If you are going to NC, Skybus has uber cheap tickets into GSO (Greensboro, the closest airport to the house) from Columbus, OH and I think Gary, IN (if you trust leaving your car there). I'm trying them for the first time next week... I'll let you know how it goes. I'm sure it gets to GSO from more airports, I'm just not sure which ones.
Posted by Lauren
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