Day Four: It Feels Like Cheating

Today was a pretty slow. The calm before the storm if you will. With only one short treatment of laetrile this morning we had the rest of the day free to do... pretty much nothing. It was nice though. Krissy was able to catch up on some of the cards she brought to sign and I caught up on some movies and TV shows I've been sitting on. Then we decided to get out of the hospital and had a nice lunch down at the yogurt place. Today we tried the chicken burritos. They were very good, but more like a big taquito than a burrito, as here they only had sauteed green peppers and onions inside. Krissy also indulged on a scoop of their home made sugar free frozen yogurt. It was quite good, full of whole strawberries and covered in almonds, sunflower seeds and raisins. For those of you that know me and my crazy food allergies, I of course had to avoid most of this treat but did sneak a taste from the middle of the scoop. It was really more fun for me to watch Krissy eat something "naughty".

Our friends Sharon and Jenny decided to take their light treatment day and visit San Diego. They were able to take cabs and the trolley to get into the city and had a nice day of shopping and sight seeing. You'd never know Sharon has cancer by her attitude and determination, that girl was adamant about marching out of here and seeing San Diego and damn it if they didn't do it. It makes me happy to see someone like her, who has received such negativity from her "Western" doctors, to tell them all to screw off and come to Oasis and then find the strength to get out and enjoy her time here. There are so many fighters in this hospital, including our amazing Krissy, it makes me humbled and thankful to able to experience this with them.

Tonight we got a chance to speak with Manuel and is wife Chindi from a few rooms down the hall. She has stage four colon cancer and had already done 2 years of chemo before coming here. Before she came to Oasis she had many of the same symptoms as Krissy: indigestion, vomiting and then the same nightmare of stomach decompression and surgery before her cancer was discovered. Her cancer causes her to have intense pain in her lower back, to the point that Manuel has to put scalding hot water bottles on her skin to alleviate it. However, after just one of her full treatments here at Oasis the pain subsided. Just like that. She's gone a full day and a half with no pain medication and was up and out of her room for the first time in a couple of days. Truly amazing. Think the doctors back home will want to know how it's done? Nah, me either.

When we returned from lunch there was a notice in the cafeteria that dinner would be at 6:00 tonight and would be "Very Special". Ok, cool, maybe it'll be brown AND black rice tonight. Woohoo! But boy, did they have a surprise ready for us. We walked downstairs and were greeted by a completely redecorated cafeteria, fully decked out with glowing crystal chandeliers, a huge dinner table with gold trimmed china, crystal centerpieces, new years masks and drapery on the walls and jamming holiday music. Last but not least, there were three huge platters of food. Oh, the food, it was absolutely delicious. We were served oven roasted turkey with tofu glaze and mixed veggies, fish and spinach egg rolls, apple and tofu salad, and a special hot fruit cider. Nearly the entire 3rd floor (our floor of cancer patients) were able to attend and a great time was had by all. I'm going to have my bro Josh, a.k.a. Sensei Egg Roll, try his hand at those fish egg rolls sometime, they were super fantastic. For desert we reveled in bunuelos with honey. It felt like cheating but the staff swears it wasn't. We all toasted to a new year full of happiness and health, shared hugs and a few tears of joy, and then said our goodnights. It was really a great time and an uplifting experience. Sometimes food and laughter is the best medicine.

Tomorrow Krissy moves into the meaty part of the treatment schedule. She'll receive the first transfusion of 70 million donor lymphocytes to bolster her immune system. These will start attacking the cancer cells that have been getting steadily weakened by the laetrile/genoxal/nutraceutical therapy from the past four days. Basically, her immune system will be jumpstarted and then it'll begin eating at the tumors, like it should in a regular healthy person.

This also relates to a funny observation I made about the hospital. There is a very high ratio of young staff working here, much moreso than you'd see in our hospitals. From the admin staff to the patient representatives to the nurses, they are all probably 30 years old and younger. One of our nurses looks like she's 14! However, there is a reason for this. They are all donors for the lymphocyte transfusions. The therapy requires lymphocytes from young, healthy and non-genetically related donors. The hospital employs these types of people and has a pool of 27 donors to cull these cells from. It's slightly strange at first, but then you think about how these people are donating their cells to help the very people they are working with to cure cancer and it adds another layer of appreciation for the treatment program here. At every level the Oasis is dedicated to saving your life. Pretty amazing stuff maynard.

Well that's enough rambling for one Near Year's Eve. I doubt we'll really stay up until midnight but if so we'll toast with some filtered water and maybe high five a nurse or two. I wish you all a Happy New Year, and pray for health and happiness for everyone here at Oasis and back home. G'night!