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A newspaper article by family 1. It is no longer on the newspaper’s website, but it was posted to Dani’s Foundation website (thankfully!) http://danisfoundati...ained-a-battle/
They lost a child, gained a battle
Posted on Sep 4th, 2013
From http://www.detroitne...d-Gained-battle
No one would blame Kelly and Gary Pollack of Brighton for raging against the wickedness of cancer that took the life of their 17-year-old son, Avery Roy Pollack.
But cancer is not the only culprit they fault. It’s the treatment — chemotherapy, specifically — that this bereaved couple is speaking out against, and the lack of the medical community to offer more options.
“I want the public to know that Avery never gave up,” Kelly Pollack said on Monday while preparing for her middle son’s memorial. “He continued to fight until the very end. But his life was cut short. And until we as a society demand that research not be dictated by the deep pockets of pharmaceutical companies other Averys will suffer and die like our son. We need to wake up.”
Avery died in the early morning hours on Sat. Aug. 3 in his bedroom at home. Diagnosed March 6, 2011, with an aggressive and rare form of pediatric bone cancer – osteosarcoma – Avery had just found his stride as a forward in soccer. He went from “living life at 90 miles an hour” to having to choose between amputating his right leg just above the knee or an attempted “limb salvage.”
With uncommon maturity for an eighth grader, Avery sized up his options. Keeping his leg involved a mechanical implant that carried a high risk of infection and possible, rejection. In short order, “Avery told the orthopedic surgeon:‘I don’t want to do that, just cut if off,’“ his father, Gary said. “Everything was Avery’s choice. The grace and strength with which this child handled everything amazed everyone.“
Chemo began in April, 2011 with infusions scheduled on alternate weeks. “Which sounds pretty reasonable until you realize you are off because you are too sick to be poisoned that week,” Kelly says. “So you go home and vomit non-stop, just to start the cycle all over again.”
Gary says outright: “We are very anti-chemo. It doesn’t work: the cancer just keeps coming back.”
Avery had the amputation surgery in June. Wheeled on the gurney into post-op, he gave his folks a thumbs-up. “Didn‘t hurt a bit,” he said. “He was more worried about us than himself,” said Gary.
In private moments with his parents, Avery would shed the tough exterior. “He was scared, frustrated and angry,” said Kelly. But outwardly he was always saying: “Ok, what’s next?”
By November, doctors pronounced him cancer-free and his Mom and Dad threw a big bash at the house. Over 100 friends and neighbors came to celebrate. Kelly put out a big spread.
Avery also found great comradery at Hellner’s Prosthetics and Orthotics in Ann Arbor. Fellow amputees encouraged Avery to “ask away,” and he did. When owner Buddy Hellner offered him a job working weekends and after school, Avery was thrilled. Drew Hellner, Buddy’s son, took Avery under his wing, helping to outfit him with special bike pedals, even a prosthetic-fitting snowboard. With renewed confidence Avery also leaned to master brake and acceleration pedals so well he passed his drivers test with flying colors.
But the progress was short lived. In October, 2012 a small nodule was found on Avery’s left lung. From Dec 2012 until May 2013, Avery endured three thoracotomies – each were serious, horribly invasive, major lung surgeries. After, when doctors prescribed additional chemotherapy, Avery said no. In the last two and half years he’d spent more than 200 nights in the hospital. He’d had enough.
In the last two months of his life, Avery gradually deteriorated, his body ravaged, his family believes, as much from the cancer as from the invasive treament and extreme measures taken to stop it.
“It’s not that I blame the oncologists or the surgeons,” Kelly said. “I don’t blame anyone that my son had cancer. I don’t even blame God. But I don’t understand why so little has changed in cancer treatment in over 50 years. Chemotherapy is brutal and it’s not working.”
Tonight, family and friends will gather for a memorial service at the 242 Community Church in Brighton. They will celebrate Avery’s love of life. They‘ll talk about how much he admired his brother Emery for picking up the soccer mantel in his stead, how much he adored his older sister Carly, how he loved the Tigers, how he never, ever “tapped out” or gave in. They will not talk about his suffering or their deep pain from their inabilty to have prevented it.
But given time, Kelly says, she will become a voice for change. “It is my mission“, she said “ We need to invest in other courses of treatment that looks at the body as a whole and preserves the immune system. Because right now chemo does the exact opposite: at great risk, great pain and great loss.
Family #2: This was messaged to me on my facebook account. I asked for permission to post this information.
Wife beside me in her hospital bed in a drug induced sleep. Terminal esophageal cancer with mets to her brain. So many that I have refused to allow any further chemo or radiation to be done and she agrees. Going to try RSO as a final hope. She has been going through chemo for 3 months and so sick she has not been able to get off the couch the entire time. Was lied to by the entire medical community. Wrote her off since the day she was diagnosed. (They found over 20 tumors in her liver in Jan 2014). Led us to believe there was Hope with chemo.....
As soon as I "put the word out" that my wife was willing to try RSO people came out of the woodwork willing to help. Going to have some delivered to my house tomorrow by someone I trust. Oncologist told the wife today that no more treatment recommend and to call hospice. Now putting faith in God and what he has supplied us with. And by the way I am a part of the medical community. There has to be more honesty so that patients are not given false hope when dealing with certain death if they use "traditional medicine". Regardless of how the use RSO turns out, my wife has wasted the last 3 months being so sick from chemo she couldn't get out of bed.
My wife has been dealing with digestive issues for years and had multiple hospital stays and exams to try to discover what was wrong with her. She had her gallbladder removed in 2010 and her condition worsened. She sought answers at the U of M and the Cleveland clinic without results. Her symptoms included: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdomen pain. They did tests to rule out crohn’s and celiac disease. They settled on gastroporesis and IBS. After multiple ER admissions and elevated liver enzymes they added chronic pancreatitis. In October her conditions worsened with the pain and vomiting being unbearable. Unfortunately I had my hours cut at work and couldn't afford insurance. After seeing how much she was suffering I got benefits back on the first of the year at a cost of over 1K a month. Literally 30% of my pay. When I took her in to the ER they tried to send her home with pain meds. She refused and when they did the CT scan they found over 20 various sized tumors in her liver. She had a CT scan the prior may and it was clean. They did a scope down her throat because she was unable to stop vomiting and found a small lesion in her throat that matched the cancer in her liver. We were told that it was cancer, but that the silver lining was that it would also aggressively take up the chemotherapy drugs. 4 months later and the cancer has spread to her brain and we were also told today that in spite of the chemotherapy that the cancer has also spread significantly in her liver, chest, and around her heart. My wife just turned 43 on March 26. She was so sick she couldn't shower and couldn't even get off the couch. We have 4 children and guardianship of our 5 year old grandson. Had the doctors been honest up front she would not have had the chemotherapy and enjoyed the time she had remaining. We both feared she would be I'll until it was time for hospice care and now it looks like our fears have been realized.
Seriously, think twice before accepting the options the doctors are giving are the only options. They will not hesitate to deceive you. As far as I am concerned, our current medical system, which includes, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and our government, have become one big organized poison pushing drug ring. It just makes me sick, I have no faith in our medical system. I see stories like this often and it just sickens me.
With the first story, the mother was in constant contact with me. Reading her messages brought tears to my eyes.
The second story, the family has offered to provide updates. I will post them as I receive them.
I have not made RSO for well over a year now due to a court of appeals ruling in my state that has ruled concentrates illegal. It just makes me sick and angry that I am not allowed to help people, that doing good is considered illegal. Great evil like chemo treatments are rewarded with mass amounts of money. Chemo treatments are used like candy. That should be an absolute last resort, not the first option. In many cases, patients would live longer had they not received the chemo treatments. Even in other cases, the cancer is growing so slowly that the patient will not even die from the cancer, but from some other cause. Still, most doctors will recommend chemo anyway. Yet, a plant provided by God is illegal. Oh we are such bad people, not even allowed to help someone for free. This is not the land of opportunity anymore, this is the land of lies and deception.
Me personally, I would rather try RSO (decarbed concentrated cannabis oil) first. Yes, I will be laying there stoned out of my mind for 3 to 6 months, totally baked. Considering the alternative, chemo treatments, and being bedridden and sick for who knows how long with a high potential of the treatment either killing me or causing a more aggressive cancer. Well, I choose the oil.
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