7/21: Antineoplastons Day 3...Sort of

Leo had a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan scheduled today to start at 11:30, but we were asked to get there by 9:30am. As usual it was going to be under general anaesthesia, which meant no eating or drinking several hours in advance. Leo knows these things, so he woke-up hungry and thirsty at 2:00am! I can't remember what we fed him, but he fell back asleep at about 3:45. He woke-up hungry again at 7am, which was probably past the no-eating time, but what can we do when he seems to be starving!? After a small snack we disconnected him from the antineoplaston pump as directed and were off.

From about 9:30 until 11:00 I was passed-out on a waiting room couch at Greater Houston Imaging, with Leo passed-out right on top of me, near a beautiful large fishtank. Too bad we didn't have a camera with us, because Marina said the two of us (snoring) were quite a sight! Anyway, a PET scan involves injecting radioactive glucose and then measuring tumor activity -- tumors seem to like glucose much more than normal cells, so a baseline blood test for glucose level was needed. The co-antagonist in our saga, Leo's venus port, of course didn't cooperate again even after another needle change, so they started an IV for some reason to draw blood. For those keeping score, that's 2 more needles today. At least the nurses did a really good job and Leo didn't seem to feel any pain (and I didn't try to pass out). Here are 3 images from the PET scan. The black dot in the "crosshairs" is the tumor:

While Leo recovered I got him another custom-made, low-sodium pizza from Whole Foods, but we were warned he wouldn't be thirsty or hungry for a while. In addition, there was concern now for his damned venus port and we were told to go to Houston Imaging (a different place). A radiologist would inject iodine into the port and do an x-ray to see what was going on inside, to ensure there wasn't an internal problem. Leo wasn't happy about this, but since it was completely painless and took only a few minutes, cooperated as much as anyone could have expected. Fortunately, all the internal "stuff" of the port seemed to be working perfectly and we got to see a video x-ray of exactly where the iodine traveled, which was very cool. Another TPA flush will probably be required next week.

By now it was about 4pm and we still hadn't even been to The Clinic, even though they called a few times. We weren't about to skip a treatment and battled Houston traffic to arrive just past 4:30 to get Leo hooked-up to treatment 3. Unfortunately because of the PET scan and port check-up, yesterday's treatment (#2) didn't complete, so neither of the antineoplaston doses was increased today, but will be tomorrow.

Leo's appetite returned and he enjoyed the low-sodium pizza and a few other things, took the decadron, and just passed-out at about 7pm -- an arduous day to say the least. He was so tormented today, so bothered and poked and prodded that he sadly seems to be starting to realize that this is his undeserving, misfortunate "norm," while we pray this is just a temporary setback. Today, for the first time ever, after denying anything hurt, Leo said he was just scared.

I'm half-way through reading, "The Burzynski Breakthrough." It's easy reading and contains plenty of propaganda, but has a lot of history and general information, especially about some of the most amazing cases.