Wendy has had many treatments over the years since she was first diagnosed in 1991. In this section we detail them all both the conventional and alternative treatments and therapies. Wendy also describes some of the possible side effects as well. The message here is that YOU must be in control of your illness in conjuction with the Doctors. YOU have to be exceptional not normal, normal people get normal results on the other hand exceptional people get exceptional results! - do not accept the first answers you are given, make a nuisance of yourself!

Patients will be treated in hospital with either radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. Each patient treatment is planned individually; depending on their age, general health & how far the disease has spread.

Radiotherapy is effective when only a few glands are enlarged & the disease is not widespread. It involves the use of powerful x-rays. Patients will be positioned underneath the treatment machine for only a few minutes each session. The treatment is completely painless & is given over a 4-week period, once a day, Monday to Friday.

Side Effects

Some people experience nausea, vomiting, & tiredness but this is mild & only temporary. Towards the end of the treatment the skin may feel quite sore, rather like sunburn.

Chemotherapy is effective when the disease has spread to many lymph glands or which has spread further to involve other organs. It comprises of a series of intravenous injections (into the veins) & drugs by tablet form. The length of treatment depends on how well the disease responds to the drugs. 6-8 months is about average.

Side Effects

Because the treatment involves the use of several powerful drugs, it is as well for patients to be aware of certain well-recognised side effects. Unfortunately many people find the prospect of these, more frightening than any other aspect of their Hodgkin’s disease. There is really no reason to expect dreadful consequences as most of the side effects are predictable & if they occur can be managed in such a way as to cause the patient the least possible upset.

Effects on the Blood

For about 10-14 days after each chemotherapy injection, the white blood cells, which fight infection, the red blood cells, which prevent anaemia, & the platelets, which prevent bleeding, may all be reduced in numbers, although, after this time, they all return quickly to normal. When the blood count is at its lowest point the patient is more likely to pick up infections. Should a trivial cold or high temperature develop it is absolutely vital that the doctors are contacted so treatment of antibiotics can begin.

*** Important *** Since Wendy began her treatment in 1991, there have been advances in the medication available to support the blood cells. White blood cells can now be stimulated by using a growth factor, which is a manufactured protein very similar to a natural protein produced by your own body. Injections are given to stimulate the bone marrow (the factory where new blood cells are made) to produce more white blood cells, this helps to prevent infections. The particular growth factor Wendy is using at the moment is NEUPOGEN (filgrastim)

*** Important *** There is a product available to stimulate the red blood cells which prevents anaemia. Unfortunately, this in not available on the NHS as it is very expensive. Wendy is receiving these injections as a private prescription the drug is called EPREX (erythropoietin). The drug is approximately £1000 per injection, generally four injections are required. The drug helps to boost blood counts thus preventing anaemia and associated problems i.e., lethargy, fatigue, breathlessness and depression.

Nausea & Vomiting

Patients may experience symptoms following chemotherapy & these will range from a sensation of mild nausea to a bout of vomiting at their worst. These symptoms are short lived and can be controlled by anti emetics (anti sickness drugs).

Constipation & Indigestion

Constipation is very common complaint as is indigestion. Patients will be advised on suitable medicines to alleviate these symptoms.

Hair Loss

With some forms of chemotherapy, there is unlikely to be hair loss, while with others it may be pronounced. The patient will be advised accordingly & also be offered the services of the wig-fitting department. It is important to note however that the hair always grows back at the end of the treatment. Recent ideas have been to wear a "COLD CAP" when the Chemo' is being given. The concept here is that the drugs kill fast growing cells (hair) on contact, so by wearing a cold cap, provided by the hospital the blood vessels to the hair folicle are constricted thus no Chemo' drug passes to the folicle and your hair can stay intact. The cold cap is fitted by the hospital and is VERY cold it is removed when you leave the hospital after your treatment.  Wendy has used this and has kept a full head of hair !

Tingling in the figures

This is an extremely common symptom with chemotherapy in which a particular drug called Vincristine is used. Patients complain of numbness & clumsiness of finger movements. This particular symptom is also temporary.

Whilst all the problems described above are temporary & result in no permanent injury, there is one side effect which often seems permanent. Since chemotherapy affects normal rapidly growing cells in the body, it follows that the rapidly growing sperm cells in men & the egg forming cells (ova) in women are also affected. Unfortunately unlike other body tissues, recovery of these cells cannot be guaranteed. This almost always results in sterility of men, whereas about half of women patients become sterile. When Wendy was first told back in 1991 she had to undergo Chemotherapy her Doctor said that it may make her infertile and offered Wendy the I.V.F as a precaution to capture some fetilised embryo's.The In Vitro Fertilisation (I.V.F) procedure detailed in the Hallam Medical Centre patient information booklet says:-

The ovaries are stimulated to produce more eggs than in a natural cycle. These are collected routinely under sedation on an outpatient’s basis. The eggs and freshly prepared sperm are cultured overnight in an incubator & then checked for fertilisation.

Embryos of adequate quality resulting from the IVF related treatment can be frozen and stored. Only good quality embryos survive the freezing process, fragmented, abnormal or damaged embryos will be discarded.

After Care following Chemotherpay

Once the treatment has finished, arrangements will be made for the patient to receive regular check-ups at an outpatient’s clinic. At each follow up visit a blood test will be taken & analysed & there will be a need for occasional scans. As time passes & providing there are no problems, the intervals between clinic visits will gradually be increased from three to six monthly & eventually twelve months.

Over the years Wendy's has become increasing aware of alternative therapies and the following treatments are currently being used. We will provide more detail on the subjects where there is a blank very soon....

Chemotherapy Sensitivity Test

During my first consultation with Proff. Douwes at tKlinic-st.geogre hospital in Germany, I was offered I Chemotherapy Sensitivity Test. This is a procedure where blood samples are taken and sent away to be analysed - mine were sent to a laboratory in Greece. During these tests the samples are subjected to a variety of different Chemotherapy drugs. The results, which take around seven days, tell the Doctors exactly which Chemotherapy drugs your own tumours are sensitive too. This then prevents you having "standard" regimes of Chemotherapy, which might not actually be effective for you. This then enables the Doctors to specifically tailor your Chemotherapy drugs, which are effective for your individual tumour cells.

NK Cell Test

I was also given a Natural Killer Cell Test at  Klinc-st george.. These cells are your own white blood cells, which normally seek out and destroy cancer cells. A blood test can again identify which substances enable your NK Cells to multiply and work more effectively. A number of products are tested and in my case Mistletoe - a very popular choice for many people proved to be ineffective - where as Thymoject and Factor 2 to stimulate the thymus gland showed to be very effective. As a result of this test I now have to inject myself with these products twice a week to stimulate growth of the NK cells.

Hyperthermia (Extracts from an article written about the St George Hospital (Klink St Georg)

High acidity and hypoxemia also damage the vessels that nourish the cancer cells, thus choking them off from fresh blood supply. This effect is enhanced because, compared to normal cells, cancer cells have a primitive form of blood supply that is not able to disperse heat as readily.

Another way heat works, besides increasing cell permeability is to damage the membranes, proteins and enzymes of cancer cells, making them much more vulnerable to anti-cancer agents, including herbal and nutritional agents, chemotherapy and radiation. Both in laboratory conditions and living humans (in vitro and in vivo), studies have documented that, after exposure to high levels of heat, cancer cells die faster at a fraction of the usual dosages of chemotherapy and radiation.

Brain cancers respond especially well to localised hyperthermia – 85% of pancreatic cancers treated at the clinic have gone into at least partial remission. With conventional therapies, pancreatic cancers are almost always fatal within a year.

In local-region hyperthermia, the heat is only directed regionally and straight to the tissue or organ affected by the tumour. This is accomplished by passing computer-controlled electromagnetic short radio waves (not microwaves - old-fashioned method) from a transmitter through the patient to a receiving plate. These are positioned around the body region affected by the tumour. Temperatures ranging from 107 to 111 degrees Fahrenheit are maintained for 60 to 90 minutes. Temperature is checked either directly from inside the tumour or from outside using a radiometer. The patient is usually wide-awake for the procedure, needing no anaesthesia – except when treating prostate cancer, which requires local anaesthesia. In these cases, a radio transmitter is inserted through a urethra catheter directly into the prostate and temperatures of as high as 158 degrees Fahrenheit are applied for one year.

Because cancerous tissue is denser than normal and radio waves are more readily absorbed by denser tissue and converted into heat, local hyperthermia is self-focusing onto areas of malignancy. Again, because malignant tissue has a relatively primitive blood supply system, blood cannot circulate freely through and around a tumour, thus it tends to hold the heat.

Whole-body hyperthermia is especially appropriate for advanced cancers that have a propensity to metastasise, such as breast, prostate and ovarian (which often spreads to the lungs and liver) and lymphomas. Dr Douwes says hyperthermia allows lymphomas to ‘melt away like butter in the sun’. The treatment also has a marked effect on pain: within two treatments, pain is usually reduced so dramatically that even patients on high doses of morphine no longer need their pain medications. For the whole-body procedure, the anaesthetised patient lies on a standard-sized hospital bed supporting a shiny reflective insulated ‘tent’ (sometimes called a whole-body cabin) with an array of infrared-A lamps. Infrared light, if humans could see it, would appear just beyond the red side of the rainbow, the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. While we cannot see infrared light, we do experience it as heat.

During treatment, monitors are hooked up to measure the patient’s heart rate, respiration, temperature, oxygen, carbon dioxide, blood sugar levels, blood pressure and SKG activity. Intravenous tubes are also attached to provide water, nutrients, anaesthesia and in some cases chemotherapy. Typically, it takes one to one and a half hours under the lamps to raise the body temperature from its normal 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) to almost 107.7 degrees Fahrenheit or a slightly above. Infrared-A light penetrates the skin one half to one centimetre, going into the capillary bed and heating the blood. The patient is kept at these elevated temperatures for two to two and a half hours, after which, there is a cool-down period for one and a half to two hours – until body temperature returns to normal. The whole-body procedure is usually performed twice a week for up to three weeks, depending on the severity of the cancer.

Wendy's Homeopath is Dr.David Cohen. Contact number 0161 792 4477.

Healing, with Matthew Manning

We had heard about Matthew Manning from his numerous books and TV apperances etc, Wendy decided to give it a go. Wendy has had healing before with good benefit. Bristol Cancer Help Centre had recommended weekly healing so this is what she had arranged locally. However Wendy is now having monthly healing from Matthew as well to boost what she is doing.

Accupuncture

Intravenous ozone

Oxygen therapy

Magnetic field therapy

Vitamin infusions

Traumeel inhalation

Coffee enemas

Meditation/visualization/relaxation

Reiki

Colonic irrigation