I hadn’t expected to be doing this, so even though I was still in shock I set about to put my house in order and clear the decks for the fight ahead. There was so much to do it made my head swim.

The first order of business was to set up consultations with the doctors who had the most Mesothelioma experience. My wife and I had spent several days searching the web for contacts. UCLA in Los Angeles was an immediate and obvious place to go. Aside from being almost local, they had experience in this disease and were members of a non-profit Mesothelioma research foundation that provided me with lots of information. Brigham and Women’s hospital (BWH) in Boston, while farther away, was another place that seemed to rank high in the treatment of Mesothelioma and was then running various clinical trials with unique treatments to go along with surgery. The University of Pennsylvania was on my list as a hospital that performed gene therapy clinical trials for Mesothelioma.

I decided to widen my options and not just pursue surgery. Losing a lung seemed like such a drastic step. If there was any way to avoid it I was resolved to try. I even investigated holistic and/or homeopathic cancer remedies. Vitamins were a good place to start and I began to take a full complement of multivitamins every day along with substances that claimed to boost the immune system. This was something I had never been motivated enough to do before. A search of the Internet brought me to a substance called Essiac tea, supposedly a Huron Indian herbal cancer treatment made from slippery elm bark and several other homeopathic ingredients. What I learned was that it had strong anecdotal support as an anti-cancer treatment but had never been clinically tested or proven. Regardless, I searched for this tea and resolved to use it if it would help me fight my cancer. I found Essiac tea after some difficulty at a Mother’s natural food store and began brewing large batches and drinking it twice a day for the next few months up until my surgery. This was despite the cost of over $50 for a ten-day supply. Although I was unsure if it would help, I was prepared to try it.

Through the wonders of email, I contacted UCLA, Harvard and U Penn regarding consultations and received next day responses. I set up consultations with Boston and Los Angeles but was rejected by the University of Pennsylvania for two reasons. Firstly, their gene therapy trial had been suspended because of a patient death in another study and secondly, my pleurodesis procedure put me outside of the requirements for their gene therapy trial. They wanted patients who had not had this procedure. I made arrangements to visit UCLA and travel to Boston to consult with BWH, which was associated with Harvard.