PollysWebSite

I have had a bit of trouble getting the wireless connection at the hospital to recognize my email address as a bona fide "sender" but think I may have it under control now. We arrived on Monday a little after 11:00 am..........What a long trip but Air France treated us well. The Doctors started seeing Polly that afternoon and taking her history so that they could determine her exact course of treatment. Today they did various infusions and localized Hyperthermia treatments. On Friday she is scheduled for a whole body Hyperthermia treatment accompanied by a small dose of chemotherapy so will probably not feel too well for the weekend. The country is beautiful here with bicycles still being a major source of transportation in the cities. Spring is arriving, the grass is getting green and the early flowers are blooming. Polly sends her love to all. We miss everyone and thank you for all that you are doing to make it possible for us to be here.

All is well over here and I am quite excited about the entire process.

I have had Localized hyperthermia, chelation therapy, Oxygen therapy, inhailation therapy, Selenium therapy for heavy metals, Ultrasound to check organs and loads of vitamins so far. Tomorrow I do Galvanotherapy and on Friday I do whole body hyperthermia. I am so excited! I wanted to thank you for all of your work on the web page as it is proving to be quite informative for many. I hope it is not too much work. I love you tuns and will be sending a bunch of photos tomorrow to upload. Stay in touch,

Love you tuns, P

The last couple of days have been tough ones here. Yesterday Polly had a whole body Hyperthermia which is accompanied with low dose chemo that gets enhansed by the heat She was sick the day befor that, did the treatment well, slept well with drugs last night and then has been sick today from the chemo. This is her third day without eating. They are expecting her to feel a lot better tomorrow and I sure hope they are right. I did quite a bit of walking while Polly slept . It is so different from home here. The streets are very narrow and most of the cars are very small. Prices don't appear to be much different than at home but then the Euro is worth a third more than the dollar. I hope everything is well at home. I really miss being there but tomorrow is one week. Only 2 more to go. I have more pictures but am having trouble sending them. Will get them out as soon as I can get everything to work. The food here is certainly not "health food". I can't believe how much thy fry. Potatoes are a big part of every meal. The good part is that they always have good fresh salad greens and good wholegrain breads. Can't wait to see you.

Polly is a little better today but still not eating anything, though she has sipped a little chamomille tea. She can smell the chem coming out of the pores in her skin so I made a warm tub with sea salt and chamomille for her to soak in. That helped a little. Mostly it has been a resting and healing day for her. I'm sure that tomorrow will start a week of procedures again and I think that they will schedule another whole body Hyperthermia again on Friday.

Polly is quite a bit better today and is eating again. What a relief it is to me to see a little color in her cheeks again. She is back to her daily local hyperthermia treatments and also oxygen treatments and electromagnetic treatments. At this rate she should be in good shape for the next, and last, whole body treatment with chemo on friday. Then she will recover for another week and then we will be heading home.....yay. I talk with the other patients and some of them have been here before with good results. There was even a woman from NH here last week...who used to live in Reading, VT. She was sent here by a friend of hers who came here for esophogeal cancer and is still in remission

POLLY IS BETTER EACH DAY BUT HAS TO START GETTING READY FOR ANOTHER TREATMENT ON FRIDAY. WE GO FOR SHORT WALKS IN THE MORNING WHEN SHE HAS A BREAK AND THEN I GO FOR LONGER WALKS IN THE AFTERNOON WHEN SHE HAS TREATMENTS. MY CIRCLE AROUND THIS TOWN GETS A LITTLE BIGGER EACH DAY.

She has fasted all day except for clear liquids in preparation for her whole body Hyperthermia with chemo tomorrow. The sensitivity test results came back and the chemo they are using is the one that Polly's own system is the most responsive to. They also ran tests for the Ukrain and she tested as being very responsive to it as well. A lot of the ones she had taken in the past were not right for her system and so did more harm than good... I met a mother and daughter who just came in for a third visit. The mother is a real estate broker from Mass here with her daughter (in her mid 30's) who has stage 3 colon cancer. The world keeps getting smaller. More news tomorrow.

It gives me enormous relief to tell you that Polly's treatment was much kinder to her today. She is tired and dehydrated and very sore but not sick. Last time she couldn't talk and this time she is actually quite chatty. Now with this one over she can start to get better again and not have to worry about the next "big" treatment.

A note to catch up after the weekend. We had our hopes high for an easier recovery from this treatment but it seems like we just postponed the hellish ordeal. On Friday after the Hyperthermia Polly came out of the anesthesia easier and was even chatty and drinking liquids. She even came to the dining room on Saturday morning and ate breakfast. Everything went downhill from there. She developed a terrible headache and vomiting which she still has. They have been giving her various infusions to relieve the headache and nausea and to keep her hydrated. She has never had headaches like this before and is now worried that there could be something in her brain so we had the Dr schedule a MRI for tomorrow. He doesn't feel that it is likely to find a tumor there as such a small percentage of colon cancers metastasize to the brain but he concedes that it would be prudent to rule it out. Polly's scans have never included her brain. She needs the peace of mind right now. I couldn't get a phone call out of Germany over the weekend so will try to make calls today to Michael. Sometimes the phone is unplugged to our room as Polly can't stand the noise of it ringing so better that I call out. I bought a phone card to make it easier and less expensive. My one call out was 65 euros (about 85 dollars).

I am getting ready to go with Polly for the MRI. I don't know how long before we get results but I will let you know as soon as we hear anything. Polly feels better today. We have taken 2 walks and she had a little breakfast and a little lunch, so far, so good.

Sorry about the lapse in updates but as I am sure most of you heard Polly's MRI came back showing a small tumor in the brain. This wasn't caused by anything that happened in Germany, it is just that the treatment caused the tumors to swell a little so they were more noticable. Polly had gotten a cat scan back in Dec. due to some headaches but it didn't show this tumor. So Polly and Barbara made a quick flight back home to get this treated. Polly went to Tufts in Boston and had what is called Gama Knife Surgery. The procedure as I understand it, involves placing a sort of halo on the head which uses the exact cordinates of the tumor to shoot a concentrated beam of radiation into the tumor and thus hopefully killing it. This can only be done with the smaller tumors which is what Polly had. The procedure went as expected and this hopefully reduced or killed the tumor they had found. Polly will now be heading back to Germany to finish her treatments. I will continue to update the website as news becomes available but right now things might slow a little as I am not getting daily emails. Thank you all for keeping up on this with me and we will keep sending all our love and thoughts Polly's way.

Polly called me last night and she sounded good. She says she's "hyped" up from the steroids!!! She said she tried calling everyone from her mom to David, with no success. Her new phone number is the same except for the last 3 digits....they should be changed to 247. She wanted to know if you could change that on the site.

The doctors have changed their treatments to include the highest dosage possible for Polly. She realizes that she will probably be very sick, but is excited about the possible outcome. She also said she has been doing a lot of walking and the weather is really warm, 80's, and the flowers and flowering trees are in full bloom.

Sorry there hasn't been as many updates with Polly's most recent visit to Germany but I haven't had Barbara sending us the daily emails to post. I just got off the phone with Polly today and she is getting ready for tomorrow. She will have her whole body hyperthermia tomorrow morning at 8am. The whole proccess takes about 8 hours and this is the last big treatment before she comes home. They tested her levels and it seems that the chemo they are using is working the best and being the most affective. Her white blood count is down quite a bit from when she got there but they have given her some shots that are supposed to help and will have her ready for tomorrow. Polly is coming home on the 16th and arrive in Boston around 1pm and should be home in Maine around 5pm. And though I am sure most of you know, Polly's 40th birthday is the 18th. She is very excited about this and I imagine would appreciate greatly any and all efforts to make it a special one. Also, I posted this on the main page, but Polly asked me to open her a new email account while she is in Germany as it is hard for her to sign into AOL. So any new emails you send will get to her quicker if you send them to POLLYWEST62@yahoo.com

Polly is back in Germany for those of you who don't already know. She had her full body treatment of hyperthermia yesterday and it went well. They are being aggressive as possible. Her cancer cell count is down about 25%. Very good news. They are saying they would like her to come back to Germany about every 4 weeks. Don't know if that will be able to happen or not but it sounds like they are attacking the cancer the best they can. Polly's new number is up on the front page. Don't forget to use the 1010987 before it to save money on your call. It is hard for her to call out but she would love to talk to you all so please don't hesitate to call her. Just remember the 6 hour time difference.