Exploring Alternatives

After being diagnosed with mesothelioma at age 48, and exploring traditional options and undergoing four rounds of chemotherapy, Charlene Kaforey was looking for alternatives. Her physicians had earlier recommended a pleurectomy or pneumonectomy, which would remove part or all of the affected lung. That option was still on the table following chemo.

But after doing extensive research, Charlene was concerned about quality of life after such a procedure. Diagnosed as Stage III, she knew that only 25 percent of patients at her status survive 20 months, with less than 10 percent surviving 5 years. Both surgeries involve significant mortality rates and require 6-9 months recovery time.

“Currently, I don’t have a lot of symptoms,” she says. “I thought, why, if I feel good, do I want to end that by having the surgery and possibly never feeling good again?

“When I was at the hospital, I looked around the waiting room and saw everyone in wheelchairs, or hooked up to oxygen. I actually started crying. People don’t look good. They don’t look healthy, and they’re struggling. I thought, is this what’s going to happen to me? I didn’t feel a lot of hope.”

During her chemotherapy, from October-December 2007, Charlene researched mesothelioma and its treatments relentlessly. That was when she discovered the ITL Alternative Cancer Treatment Clinic, located in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island.

According to its web site, ITL Cancer Clinic was founded in 2003 and is directed by Dr. John Clement. ITL Cancer Clinic is the operating company for the Immunology Research Centre Ltd., a not-for-profit corporation of the Commonweal of the Bahamas, licensed to treat patients diagnosed with cancer. The Immunology Research Centre was founded in 1977 by Dr. Lawrence Burton, the developer of Immuno-Augmentive Therapy (IAT). The clinic treats all kinds of cancer, including mesothelioma.

Charlene’s daughter, working on a college project about promoting mesothelioma awareness inspired by her mother’s illness, discovered a web site with a link to the clinic. Charlene contacted the organization on whose site she found the link, to find out if they knew anyone who had been treated there. Initially, the answer was no. But two weeks later, they called her back and put her in touch with an ITL patient.

“I talked to her and she’s 6 years out,” Charlene said, which means the patient has survived six years after diagnosis. “She has it in both lungs and here she is, traveling and living life.”

Encourged, Charlene contacted the ITL Clinic directly for more information. Staff reviewed her medical history to see if she would be a candidate for treatment at ITL, and put her in touch with other mesothelioma patients being treated there.

“I’m skeptical by nature,” Charlene says. “It’s so out of the ordinary, but when I was talking to people out 6 years and feeling good compared to others who did more traditional treatments, some of whom didn’t make it very long, or life was hard, and it seemed like a good option for me.”

Friends and family initially resisted the idea, feeling that she should take the more traditional path, including surgery.

“People thought I was crazy at first. They had read all the literature [from traditional treatment facilities] and felt that I needed to do the surgery,” Charlene says. “Do I know for certain this will work? No. But I just don’t think the statistics support my having a good quality of life or a good chance of survival with surgery and traditional methods. So I’m going to do it.”

Next: The ITL Experience

Tags: awareness, Charlene Kaforey, chemotherapy, hope, ITL Alternative Cancer Treatment Clinic, ITL Clinic, meso, mesothelioma, mortality, research

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