No Action Talk Only

Yesterday morning, I finally met Dr Beh of Heartscan for a consultation on HITV treatment. He gave me the good news, yes they can treat my cancer but first I must get rid of the kidney tumor. He encouraged me to have the surgery. He then explained the protocol and said the treatment will be in rounds. The first round will cost RM200K (US$64K) and because of the numerous tumors on my lungs, I will require at least two rounds of treatment and possibly a third round too. They will only concentrate only on the large tumors while leaving the small tumors untouched and hope that the body's immune system will attack the smaller tumors. Each subsequent round of treatment costs RM150K (US$48K). So estimated costs of treatment for me is either RM350K (US$113K) or RM500K (US$160K). I will have to explore other alternatives.

I am not against using conventional medicine if I believe that it can be of help. In my case, I have limit conventional treatment to surgery because I have read all the treatment options given to me will not be helpful. One hope was the laparoscopic surgery but then I found my tumor was too big for this procedure. I have not been reading developments of cancer treatment in East Asia, particularly China because so far I have been pro-Western in my search for medication, whether conventional or alternative. Two readers gave me some good leads, one was the Rhus Verniciflua Stokes, classified as Korean Traditional Medicine. The treatment is rather expensive and still in experimental stage which requires about 9 months stay in Korea. The other was HIFU treatment, something I am very interested in. I have contacted the 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing University in China and they have experience with kidney cancers.

A few of my friends visited me last night and besides trying to find out how my legs are doing, we talked about some of the treatment that I am now considering. The traditional treatment would be surgery and since laparoscopic or key-hole surgery is not possible for me, I told them about the non invasive HIFU treatment. I told them I am quite keen on the treatment and most likely would go there in March 2012 for treatment. Then one friend suggested, why wait so long since you are keen to do the treatment? She said why not do it in the month of December? She said since you want to do it, why not do it early to help your body to heal earlier. I have been doing a lot of reading about this treatment. Chongqing is not that cold with December temperature of between 9 °C and 19 °C.

All with all surgical procedures, no matter how small will involve some element of risk. Someone once asked me a year ago, if the tumor is not disturbing, why do you need to have surgery? Over the year, I have changed my way of thinking and the emphasis should be now. Can I do it now and would it help? Would it harm my body?  I think once the decision for surgery has been made, the most important criteria is whether the health of patient is able to undergo the surgery. I do not know if in future my body would be still in a healthy condition or not. For one thing, my current health condition is worst than that of last year same period when I was contemplating the full open surgery in Singapore. The procedure will not cure me but remove the primary tumor only. My doctors says the debulking will help the body. Of course, the main problem is still my lungs. I think I take a step at a time.