I called Bill at the phone Minni gave just now.
It's his direct line in his ward room,
He sounded in pretty bad shape, was coughing on and
off as we talked. (I was in bad shape too, one of my
hemorrhoids prolapsed today, having recurred only a
few years after excruciatingly painful and difficult surgery
in December 2004 !)
Here's the situation :
1. Minni, Bill confirmed that Jeffrey Young has no
authority over this whole issue - Kurt Ebrahim is the
one who has the last say.
2. Kurt Ebrahim won't even listen to him about being put
on a trial of amrubicin. He's the one who will decide his
chemo protocol. He can't ask for a transfer to Matthew
Dugan (director of the amrubicin study) in the Maine Cancer
Center in Scarborough too. Kurt has a residency there as well,
and Dugan knows Bill is Kurt's patient. Ethical red tape.
3. Kurt won't let him try the vitamin C infusion there. I guess
that is understandable if one takes Kurt's point of view. What if
complications arise, whether from the vitamin C treatment or
interactions with the chemo, or it just nullifies his chemo's
efficacy ? Or even if the vitamin C doesn't cause any problems,
but the chemo does, people (including the patient) may still say
that the vitamin C was the culprit. A question of liability. He doesn't
want any problems and doesn't want to be held responsible for any.
3, He said doctors there don't make house calls. So there is
no question of a doctor from Maine Wellness travelling to his
house, or the hospital for that matter, for the IV C.
4. Even after he goes home, Bill is in no position to travel to
Maine Wellness. His pain is excruciating at the slightest movement
- the cancer is eating his bones. The IV C will have to be done
at home, with someone to help him.
5. He confirmed that the cryonics fund cannot be used for IV C,
as the donors had expressed their clear intent that it be used for
cryonics only.
6. I told him to hang on in there. The Immortality Institute and
their members' powerful life extension know-how and resources
will try their best to help him pull him thru this.
Edited by tham, 14 December 2008 - 04:49 PM.