On June 3, 1998 I had an automobile accident; I ran into a parked car. The air bag deployed and I was unhurt, but the car was destroyed. I got out and called 911, who showed up quickly. The paramedic team insisted I be taken to emergency, which at first I resisted as I felt fine, but reluctantly agreed to go. X-rays were taken, and revealed no accident injuries, but showed a 20-mm tumor in the upper part of my left lung.
A CT guided biopsy was later taken and showed that the tumor was malignant and surgery was scheduled for the next week. On June 19th the surgery removed the upper third of the left lung, and `was successful in removing the entire tumor which had not spread to any outside tissues or lymph nodes. The tumor was sent to pathology, which confirmed the cancer, and pronounced it a “non small cell malignant neoplasm”. The pathologist sent out the tissue for further analysis, which proved the cancer to be from a metastasized melanoma. A MRI of the brain later confirmed that it had metastasized to the brain, and was Melanoma stage IV.
On September 12, 1998 a “Gamma Knife” procedure was performed, but the original tumor was too large to treat with the gamma knife (40-mm). A smaller tumor was detected at that time and was destroyed with the gamma knife, and I was immediately transported to Sharp Memorial Hospital for brain surgery to remove the large tumor. The following day, September 13 surgery was performed and successfully removed a 40 mm tumor from my left cerebellum.
Following surgery I asked my doctor what therapy I might expect next. He answered “none, we don’t treat dead-men.” I said, “What should I do?” He replied (in front of my wife and daughter) “go home and die”. (I was considered stage IV)
Since then, I have discovered that there are several follow-up treatments to brain cancer after surgical removal. There is radiation and chemotherapy, both of which I asked about, but was told: “we don’t spend money on dead men.”
Of course this was shocking and depressing, and I went home, but decided that I would not gracefully accept this death sentence. I spent considerable time and research on the World Wide Web. Of the many cancer treatments, most were non-scientific and not well documented. Finally, following the recommendation of an oncologist, I found the John Wayne Cancer Institute at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. JWCI had years of experience with cancer vaccine research and had a phase II vaccine program underway and had treated several thousand patients over the past two years with a newly developed cancer vaccine. They had a high success rate of markedly extending the life of cancer patients just like me. On December 4, 1998 my wife and I drove up to Santa Monica to meet with one of the primary physicians, Dr. Glenn Tisman, and have a physical by him. I asked him to mail a “Physician’s packet” to both my primary care physician and my oncologist. The information in this packet and a letter dated 1/5/99 convinced my PCP to issue an authorization for me to be treated at John Wayne. On January 20, 1999 my PCP issued this authorization for me to be treated at JWCI.
After a year of vaccine injections in their phase II study, I was discharged by John Wayne, and since have had relatively frequent MRIs and recently a PET scan. (Everything is negative so far, five years after the accident!) That accident saved my life by causing early detection! I had no symptoms at the time.
The vaccine I was given has been in phase III double blind testing for several years now, and is called Cancervax. Hopefully the study will be unblinded soon and become commercially available.
Anyone that would like more detail is welcome to contact me at jhooper2@san.rr.com .
With my best wishes,
John L. Hooper