She started whole brain radiation on Monday. She'll be treated every weekday at 8AM for three weeks. The original plan was to do Chemotherapy 10 days after radiation treatments were over, using Carboplatin and Gemzar. In view of the findings in the chest, the Carboplatin treatments will start tomorrow. I'm not sure how often that treatment will occur yet, we have an appointment with the Oncologist this afternoon. We can't start the Gemzar yet, as it should not be used during radiation therapy.

As you may know, I've been madly scouring the internet, word of mouth etc. for alternative therapies and clinical trials. One way of describing the experience is that it's like trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, without knowing what wheat or chaff looks like. The suggested treatments range from the outright fraudulent, through wishful thinking, to potential therapies that always seem to be a few years away.

One confusing issue is the use of the word 'cancer'. What works for one type of cancer won't work for another. So when you read all of the testimonials and statistics about cancer therapies you have to understand the context in which they are given, both as to what cancer was treated, and who's interests are being served in the testimonials. It can make you somewhat cynical as to the state of our health industry. And it *is* an industry for the quacks, the well-intentioned true-believers, and the Big Pharma establishment. I could write a book about it (which is another industry in itself).

This is also a good on-line book, written by an oncologist http://www.gailsbooks.com/contents.htm

As you can tell, we've pretty much decided to go with the standard program as our first choice, but I'm watching how everyone is doing on DCA and bought some early in case there were legal repercussions that would restrict it's availability in the future.

Hopefully, in the future DCA or something like it will prove to be the plan of choice instead of the plan of last resort.