Closed Doors, Open Doors

Kristine had to deal with another piece of disappointing and frustrating news this week. The rehabilitation center that she has been attending for physical and occupational therapy on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays informed her that her last session will be next Friday, May 1. They explained that she's not progressing enough to qualify for insurance coverage at this point. She still has several sessions left under our coverage for this year, but the sessions will only be approved by our insurance provider if she is showing continued signs of progress. Kristine's therapists told her that if she's able to strengthen her leg and/or arm muscles during her time off there is a chance that she could come back in a few months to continue therapy.

When Kristine was first paralyzed the neurosurgeon told her that whatever movement she would regain would likely occur within the first six months. Kristine has carried this statistic around with her since her brain surgery last October (about 6 months ago). So, of course, when the news came that she was no longer progressing physically, it hit her particularly hard. For Kristine it was like the window of opportunity had passed her by and her hopes of regaining mobility and independence disappeared along with it. Kristine will still attend aqua therapy two days a week to keep in shape and continue to work toward improving her physical condition.


After last week, we felt like we were out of options in Kristine's cancer fight. While we are still exploring conventional options like surgery, the available options are nothing more than a way to buy time. However, an interesting potential lead did surface though in the last few days. A credible customer of my father's gave him some information about an Herbalist in Ohio that helped a member of her family resolve his cancer -- he is still cancer free today after several years in remission.

Needless to say we have heard a lot of these claims before and have remained very skeptical. However, we are willing to take desperate measures these days, so we gave the man a call. It so happens that he'll be about an hour and a half outside of Philadelphia next week meeting with some other individuals. He put us in contact with a local man and his wife who are helping to organize and host his visit. When we contacted the family the man told us that they were first introduced to Mark (the Herbalist) when their son was diagnosed with a terminal cancer and given 2 months to live by John's Hopkins' cancer center. Without any information from us on Kristine's condition, he added that his son had a sarcoma that had metastasized into his lung. He claimed that in just 2 months his son's scans showed that the cancer had vanished from his lungs and in a total of 8 months his son had no readable traces of cancer left.

Of course, this all sounds too good to be true and I have a difficult time believing any of it. But for the time being it's providing us with a little more hope than we had yesterday and a little more inspiration to push us forward and fight. We set up our appointment for next Tuesday. We will be sure to keep you updated with the latest.