August 18, 2004

• God has put me in the right place at the right time again to help someone else.

  
  

  I went to Hilo to see the VA psychiatric nurse again Monday (finally… since the receptionist either forgot to make me another appointment after my last visit, or the nurse forgot to let her know I needed one!). She is concerned about my emotional & energy states (lack of for the latter) & wants to put me back on one of the anti-depressants that does help me. I talked about my herbs, which she supports. I just haven’t been making my tea again lately. She warned me off the St John’s Wort, which I won’t use (it can cause heart attacks!).

  
  

  Anyway, after leaving the clinic, I stopped in Wal-Mart to see about getting something to grind up the flax seed I bought last week. While there, I went to their vitamin & herbals aisle to see if they happened to carry a liver-care herbal blend the Chinese herbalist had me take in the past. It’s a detoxifier. An associate putting stuff on the shelves showed me a liver-care they do carry, but it doesn’t appear to be an herbal blend. The bottle listed certain chemicals, but not their source. It’s not like the one Wes recommends, which is actually a tablet made from the whole herbs, rather than extracts.

  
  

  As I spoke with the associate, she told me about having osteoarthritis. For this, she had been taking Celebrex for 10 years, but stopped it when she developed severe sensitivity to sunlight & got a nasty sunburn on her face. She’s Hawaiian mix, so normally sunlight doesn’t bother those of dark colored skin. Next, she told me she had a liver biopsy because she noticed she was feeling weak & tired all the time. Apparently, they first did a liver function blood test called an SMA-20. She said that the biopsy showed severe scaring of her liver. Then she tells me the doctor told her she has Stage IV liver cancer & has about 6 months to live! They won’t even treat her with radiation or chemo, because it’s so bad.

  
  

  I gave her the information about the noni-aloe vera-tumeric month-long treatment as well as mentioning some of the other herbs that help defeat cancers, especially soursop. I also suggested she visit with Wes herself to see if there’s something else he can recommend for her. She’s raising her grandchildren & they need her to live!

  
  

  I should have also told her to apply for Social Security Disability, because she won’t be able to continue working for much longer & she’s most likely only part-time, so could still qualify even though she’s working. I hope I run into her again the next time I go to W-M, so I can let her know about getting financial help from SS for herself & her grandkids. They are very fast on approving it here for someone like her. Usually within a month to 45 days.

  
  

  I specifically mentioned that she told me about taking Celebrex for 10 years for a good reason. One thing about Celebrex & Humira. These are ‘chemo’ drugs used in short-term treatment of OA & RA. Note the words short-term! It’s most likely one of these that Debi’s nephew was taking a few years ago that had him deathly ill! He couldn’t keep food down & hardly ate while in treatment.

  
  

  I mentioned in my last blog about ‘side’-effects from some of the anti-biotics that the doc wants me to take for the RA. One ‘side’-effect I didn’t mention that I read about in one study of the cyclosporin (anti-rejection drugs)/cephalosporins (antibiotic) groups (made from a fungus from certain areas of Europe) is that it caused lymphomas in the rats in the studies. (Note: I’m allergic to the cephalosporin antibiotics, as is my son, so this is one class she cannot put me on for my RA.) Lymphoma is cancer of the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is a primary organ for filtering toxins out of the blood. So is the liver! Since everything you ingest or is injected is filtered through these organs, I’d say her long-term use of the Celebrex can be directly linked to the Wal-Mart associate’s liver cancer! I don’t know her history though… she may have been an alcohol or drug abuser, which could have caused severe damage & scarring of her liver, leading to liver cancer.

  
  

  Here’s my real concern… since many drugs cannot be used for long-term without devastating ‘side’-effects, what about when one stops taking them? That means, without radical dietary changes, the disease can take hold again!

  
  

  
  

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  Today, the Big Island joined Oahu & other areas of the nation with a phoned in bomb threat & possible bomb left in a congested area, leading authorities to be concerned about terrorist activity. A bomb threat was called in for a major shopping center in Kailua-Kona. They found an unattended brief case in the mall & quickly evacuated the shopping center & closed it until they could get the EOD in from Oahu hours later. The briefcase turned out to be benign, with clothes & such. However, they still have concerns over the phone call.

  
  

  Also in the news is the old Puumaile & Hilo Memorial Hospital. It’s soon to be demolished, to make way for a long-term care hospital for Veterans. See this article:  http://starbulletin.com/2004/08/18/news/story14.html

  
  

  I saw in the article that the hospital was originally built to treat tuberculosis patients in 1951. I doubt they did much of that there, since I was born in that hospital 4 years later & my little sister another almost 3 years later. But who knows? My mom carried dormant TB, so each year, she made sure my sister & I had our TB tests, even to the point of getting chest X-rays for it sometimes. I’ve never had a positive reaction to the TB skin test, but my sister has.

  
  

  In regard to that Veterans hospital, it is going to be connected to the Hilo Medical Center financially in part. Therefore, from what I was told by one of the people involved with getting the appropriations, any bed not occupied by a Veteran will be filled by non-Veterans. How likely this will be is slim, since the number of beds they will support is a lot less than what they originally opted for. One thing that has yet to sink in with our governments is that the Big Island of Hawaii has about 50% of all the Veterans for the entire state! Many of them hiding in our forests.

  
  

  The demolition party is slated for next month. I hope to be there. I’d like to get a physical momento of the hospital I was born in. I was told that it still contains the tableware, hospital beds, etc that were used at the time they closed it as a hospital! In more recent years, it has been used as the administrative offices of some of our county’s departments.

  • 11:56 pm
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