I have been diagnoses with stomach cancer and told that it is presently inoper

able due to involvement of a mesentery lymph node, and my only chance to even li
ve out the year is to undergo prior chemotherapy of one kind or another to shrin
k the secondary in order to make the primary operable.
I m in the hands of Sloan-Kettering, which is supposed to be the best there is a
t least in the US, but I am dubious and skeptical about chemo, at least conventi
onal chemo, which basically delivers toxins of one kind or another to fast growi
ng cells--cancer, but also others, such as hair follicules, which is why your ha
ir tends to fall out--hence the panoply of bad side effects.
And the paradox of it is, except for an anemia which I ve successfully been tre
ating with mega Iron and mega B-12, I have no real symptoms. Can t say I feel 100
% all the time, but some days I do, and the rest maybe 80%. So I have some diff
icult scientific and existential decisions to make, and any wisdom or knowledge
would be appreciated.
I learned of the situation yesterday, as y all might imagine, slept badly, and
what came to me was something that seemed totally obvious, namely what I called
the cryogenic needle. Real simple, but it is sort of rocket science. Shorn of be
lls and whistles, it amounts to bringing the temperature of a needle down to cyr
ogenic levels using liquid oxygen or liquid nitrogen and sticking it in a tumor
to crystalize it. Unlike cutting with a scalpel, zero chance of releasing cance
r cell to metastisize, and when the tumor comes back up to room temperature, it s
long dead and perhaps even disintegrated.
Dona, who long ago had the process, reminded me that something similar has lo
ng been done to remove pre-cancerous cells from the cervex. And today I did a l
ittle more research and found out that something like it is already being done o
n some cancers as front-line treatment.
So if anyone knows more about this, or where I just might go to try and get su
ch treatment, do let me know. Conventionally speaking, and I m being treated by a
s good a conventional oncology program as there is, the prognosis is otherwise p
retty dire.
Unless, of course, someone out there has an even more brilliant idea.