KILLING
CANCER
One man’s journey down the cancer trail….
By
Two-Time Cancer Survivor
L. J. Martin
KILLING CANCER
Copyright 2010 L. J. Martin
Wolfpack Publishing
PMB 414
1001 E. Broadway, #2
Missoula, Montana 59802
ljmartin@ljmartin.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 978-1-885339-15-7
For pictures relating to this journal please see:
www.ljmartin.com/killingcancer.html
Disclaimer
The author is not a physician or a health professional of any kind, he’s merely a survivor.
His first cancer was one that takes over 30,000 lives a year in the U.S., prostate cancer, the man’s cancer as breast cancer is generally, but not always, a woman’s disease, and as uterine and ovarian cancer is exclusive to woman.
The second cancer was squamous throat cancer, with a tumor located in the lymph gland on the left side of his neck as well as a primary tumor on the back of his tongue. A national survey says that only 16% of men between 65 and 70 years of age diagnosed with throat cancer will survive. The author looks at statistics with a skeptical eye.
There’s no way to be certain that any of the herbal or homeopathic treatments he tried had any efficacy on either of the cancers he had, and he utilized every medical professional he could to effect a cure, however, he was cured. The author is not proscribing or even suggesting that these herbal, diet, and homeopathic remedies are in any way to be a replacement for expert medical treatment, and is only offering a frank and candid look at what he did to overcome and cure his cancer, and continue his lifestyle for whatever that may, or may not, be worth.
He is, however, enjoying a healthy, active life today.
Preface
KILLING CANCER
One man’s journey down the cancer trail
June 2009
It started, this time, with a knot not much larger than half a child’s marble, just beneath the jaw on the left side of my neck. An infected lymph node…I hoped…however already being a cancer survivor I was not one to wait to see what transpired. Even though an infected lymph node is often associated with a fever blister, and I was just getting over my first blister in several years, I wanted to know for sure.
A call to a local head and neck medical center resulted in the typical: “The doctor can see you in five weeks.” I laughed, if a bit sardonically, not only thinking, but saying, “I could be dead in five weeks!” Didn’t help. Was I being a hypochondriac? I hoped so, but I was more than happy to be thought one for the piece of mind. But more so, I was convinced I had to be proven one by a thoughtful, professional, diagnostician.
If this journal helps you in any way, I hope it convinces you to be proactive about your health. It’s not some smiling receptionist at the doctor’s office who’ll have to go through the long, lonely, and oft times rocky road of your cancer. It’s you, and in the final analysis, only you, who’ll have to deal with it. If you take no for an answer, then you can only blame yourself if you don’t stop the monster in it’s tracks. And even if you get in to see the doc, be skeptical. I can’t begin to tell you how many stories I have of misdiagnosis. Medicine is a science, but it’s not a perfect science. It’s oft times an art as well. You want your doctor’s best educated guess, but you want it backed up with hard science if he/she, or you, have any doubt.
Doctor’s won’t be my primary audience for this journal as docs hate patients to self-diagnose and particularly to insist on tests docs think unnecessary. The internet has to be the bane of their existence, for too much information is spread so easily…of course much of it is erroneous.
And we all seem to be ruled by what the insurance companies or Medicare will pay for. Just because we, or even our doctor, believes a test is in order, the insurance company or Medicare may disagree, and worse, the doc may be influenced against even prescribing a test because he thinks they won’t pay. We have for some time—and I fear the problem will grow to horrid proportions in the future—been subject to bureaucratic medicine, i.e., bean counters dictating your care.
In my case…no, I’ll fill you in on my current case when I get to that part of the journal.
I’m starting this journal while it’s my wife’s turn driving—we travel a lot, usually for much more enjoyable reasons, usually researching one of our novels, and each drives for a hundred miles while the other reads or writes, as I’m doing now. We’re on our way to the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, a two thousand mile drive from home in Western Montana. It’s been almost a two month odyssey from feeling a knot in the neck to pointing the car toward Houston.
Why two months? Why so far away to be treated? I’ll answer those, as well as other questions, as this journal moves forward. The basic reason is an odyssey to find the best health care in the world. But, who knows, maybe it’ll be my wife who has to finish this report as this is a disease whereby even the best may not be good enough.
The full text is available in eBook and print from Amazon.
For pictures relating to the author and his treatment see:
www.ljmartin.com/killingcancer.html
The journal KILLING CANCER is one man's trek down the cancer trail. A frank, candid look at the disease and it's treatment from the patients viewpoint. L. J. Martin is a 2 time cancer survivor: prostate cancer, which kills 30,000 men a year in the United States; and throat cancer. A USA survey says only 16% of men between 65 and 70 who contract throat cancer survive. This is the story of what one man did to join those who survive. The journal is available on eBook from Kindle/Amazon or in print from Amazon.com.