Free Help For Cancer

March 9th, 2010 Fashion Funds The Cure.

This is how the Pediatric Cancer Foundation raises money for clinical trials. These trails are for children who have run out of options. The fashion show has beautiful, professional models walk the runway at Sak’s Fifth Avenue. The children walk the runway with football players and other celebrities. The last group to walk the runway are pediatric cancer survivors.    This event is so uplifting to see these girls who are in treatment and also done with treatment walk the runway. They are all so excited about being in a fashion show!  This event raised approximately $300,000.00 in one evening!

March 17th, 2010 Doctors

We did switch to a local hospital and it is so much easier doing our chemo trips locally. Driving six hours in one day, on top of chemo was a drag. I do miss Dr. Bill, he was really great and helped us in a dire time of need.

Today was chemo day for an infusion of Vincristine through Kayla’s port. Driving 40 minutes away is a breeze.

In Kayla’s routine exam the doctor saw Kayla’s nails, he told me that something needs to be done about this. I told him what we were doing. He said a topical solution is not enough, these are hard to treat and there is the potential of this spreading. He validated what the Chinese doctor said about Kayla not touching her ears because the fungus could spread to her brain or any other area that are dark and moist. He recommended a fungal medication, which then brought up the issues of the liver and liver toxicities. He recommended Milk Thistle to protect her liver. He did not say a dose. When I went to get her prescription I asked the pharmacist about this. He looked it up and said that an adult dose is usually between 350 mg to 400 mg a day. The bottle we were looking at is a dose of 175 mg. He said this dose, given once a day would be fine. Since Kayla weighs 75 pounds she is about half the weight of an average adult. Our oncologist had said 1/2 of the adult dosage would be fine.

Oh boy, here we go. It seems we have to take action because her nails are half gone. We did find something that was working which is white iodine in a medium size bowl of water. The amount of iodine used was one capful. It is a small amount because the actual bottle is small. The iodine was the only item that was making a difference on her fingers. It got the gunk out of her nails from the fungus and helped alleviate the pain in her fingers. We are still going to use this to soak her nails everyday as we have been doing. Both anti-fungal creams did not seem to be doing anything.

I was very happy with this appointment. This is the first time that an oncologist recommended an herb to us. It also happens to be an herb that was used in a study with an adult leukemia patient whose treatment was continually interrupted because of liver problems. She took a dose of 800 mg a day of Milk Thistle (AKA Sylimarin). This was so effective she did not have another interruption for the rest of her treatment! I hope that both the Milk Thistle and fungal medication work for Kayla without any complications!