Hope4Cancer arrival

So when we made the decision to come here, the only thing not included in the price was travel expenses. Since it's just over the border in Tijuana, we decided to drive, since booking last minute flights can get expensive. It's only a half day's drive away. When we talked to our patient advocate over the phone, she said a lot of people rent a car for the day so they don't have to pay for parking for a week. Then we looked into rental car prices and we decided to look into flights too, just to see what the prices were. Due to COVID and the limited seating, we found a killer deal for round trip tickets so we booked those. Anytime it's cheaper to fly than drive, I'm all for that. 😀

A couple of weeks before we left, Scott started coughing again. We figured it was the cancer in the lungs acting up again, but he couldn't get into the doctor's office to be seen. Besides, all they'd want to do is just start chemo again. He called our family doctor and had a televisit. That was a pain and a half to even get set up. After telling her his symptoms, she prescribed an antibiotic and told him to get tested for COVID. We knew it wasn't that, but he went anyway. Owwwww! He said that was worse than needles, and he HATES needles. The test came back negative, which we knew it would. He took the full round of antibiotics and the cough still didn't go away. A week before we left for Mexico, we went to the ER. It's the only doctor's office we could actually walk into and talk with a live doctor in person. So we went there, they ran a bunch of tests, we were there forever, as usual. They did another CT scan and found that the lung lesions were still increasing in size, but his breathing was fine, thank goodness. It gave us a baseline to go from when we went to Mexico. He still has tightness in his chest; we're hoping that these treatments will help all of that subside so he's not downing Nyquil every night to help him not cough in his sleep.

The flight to San Diego was great! The plane doesn't sell middle seats, and our seats weren't on the same row, so we went to our seats and when the person on my row came to sit, we asked if she would switch places with Scott and she graciously agreed. Then we had the whole row to ourselves. He scooted over to the middle seat so we could sit next to each other. The flight was great, only 2 hours, so much better than 12 hours of driving. We had to wear masks the whole time, but it wasn't that bad. We got used to them. When we arrived at the airport, there was a driver from the center waiting for us at baggage claim. We had a pleasant drive right over the border and he pointed out some sights, including Trump's wall. It actually looks more like a large metal fence than a wall. I took a few pictures and sent them to our kids and the driver commented in how that was Trump's wall that the Americans paid for and all the Mexicans built (since they were the laborers).😂 We got a good chuckle out of that. He also said that some guy posted a YouTube video of himself climbing it after it was done and he got up and over it in 20 seconds. It only took about 20 minutes to get to the center and when we drove up, honestly, I was underwhelmed! It's right in the middle of all businesses in an area that looks kind of ghetto. There was no sign and it looked really small. My initial thought was, We paid a lot of money for THIS?! Our driver escorted us inside and we were taken to their waiting room. We arrived somewhat early so we were waiting a while. But we were finally able to meet with a nurse and a doctor to go over Scott's history. Then someone from patient services came and gave us a tour of the facility and showed us our room. For as small a space as it is, they sure have done a great job of packing a lot of things in a tiny space. That sounds like an episode of Hoarders, but it's really not! The way the place is laid out, it still feels really spacious, even if it feels like a maze for the first couple of days. I am finally understanding where everything is and we've been here 3 days. It's just like a cruise ship, usually by about halfway through our stay, I finally have the lay of the land figured out. #directionallychallenged

 The first day was a lot of consulting with doctors. And Scott had his blood drawn and an ultrasound from neck to groin. We've met with a nutritionist also to go over some guidelines to help curb Scott's cholesterol, glucose markers and inflammatory markers, which are all high. The goal is by the end of his stay here, all of those numbers will be lower due to the diet he is eating. It is basically vegetarian, mixed in with fish. Scott is allergic to shellfish, but they don't serve that here, just wild caught stuff. We still have to be careful though. Our second day here he broke out in hives and we had fish for lunch. He had two rounds of Benadryl and a steroid, and it's under control now and the doctors are eliminating fish for the next couple of days to see if that was the trigger. They're giving him chicken instead, but he has to eat it in our room so the other patients don't get jealous. 😆

We met with a functional medicine doctor yesterday. That was powerful! He focuses on finding the emotional triggers to cancer. Did you know that 100% of cancer patients have some underlying emotional issue that has contributed to their cancer?! The type of trauma determines the type of cancer. It may sound silly, but it makes total sense to me. Do some research on it and your mind will be blown too. I think this will the most powerful treatment for Scott of all the treatments. We also meet with him again to go over supplements. We'll find out what kinds and how much he should be taking for his condition. Finally! This is something we've been trying to find the answer to for months, ever since his endoscopy. I finally feel like we're getting some traction and answers.

Scott's rash has subsided, so he can do some of the heat treatments today. They were holding off because the heat could exacerbate the rash, but now he can do them. His treatments consist of a lot of IV vitamin infusions, light therapy, heat therapy, emotional healing, laying in a hyperbaric chamber every day, coffee enemas, and lymphatic stimulation. He is also doing a natural kind of immunotherapy;  he'll start that next week. This kind of immunotherapy doesn't suppress your immune system like the ones in the states, it actually enhances it. The goal of the treatments here is to get your body to an optimal state of health so that the healthy cells will naturally fight off and kill the cancer cells. A lot of the treatments here focus on killing the cancer stem cells and enhancing the healthy cells. Chemotherapy just kills all cells, both good and bad, and hopefully the healthy cells regenerate themselves and the cancer cells stay dead, but that's usually not the case, unfortunately. 

I have learned so much here! Scott and I both speak Spanish so it has been fun to speak with the staff. They all know English as well, but they don't hesitate to speak Spanish with us if we speak to them. I love being surrounded by these sweet, loving Hispanic people. Everyone from the cute cleaning ladies, to the amazing food staff, to the awesome nurses and doctors have been so sweet and nice. You can really feel that they care about you here. Even the doctor's visits are thorough and they don't feel rushed. True, when you're in an inpatient facility like this one, there aren't as many patients and they can take the extra time needed for each patient, but it's still nice to feel like you're not being rushed to leave so they can see the next patient.

Well that's the latest, folks! So glad we have this opportunity to be here. I head back home next week and Scott will be here a total of three weeks, and he'll be sent home with an extensive at home program. They'll do blood tests and another ultrasound before he leaves to see if anything has changed. Fingers crossed that they will, for the better. He'll come back three months after he leaves for a couple of days to do the blood tests and the ultrasound again, and then again three months after that.

Thanks for reading! I'll post another update before I go home.