BELIZE EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY IN GETTING CANCER DIAGNOSIS BIOPSY.
I had to get a biopsy for a cancer diagnosis. One hospital in Belize would not guarantee the results. I had spoken to 7 doctors, and all complained that the fine needle biopsy obtained through a pathology lab in Orlando, Florida, consistantly came back with INCONCLUSIVE and would have to be repeated. My librarian, said one private hospital in the port Belize City, charged a family member $8000 for a biopsy. ( 5 minute procedure ). At one hospital they were going to bill me $3200 for a biopsy, I said no thanks, I could not afford anything like that. I had to pay $160 for talking to the doctor sell me his spiel, to get out of there. That was Belize Medical Associates in the port. That place is a money mill in my opinion. I pity the poor suckers that end up there. Still ended up having to pay on the low side, the huge sum of $550 to get my biopsy done at another clinic/hospital, private sector run. Stick a needle in my neck, screw it around and come out with pieces of meat. After ten days it came back INCONCLUSIVE also, even though the doctor who did it here, said there was plenty of tissue for the pathology lab. OUCH! $550 flushed down the toilet and I have to do it again. All they got was dead cells. My COLLOIDAL SILVER self treatment must be working like a chemo therapy session maybe? ( grin )
I changed medical facilities and doctors. Got to do another biopsy. They tell me they get good biopsy stuff, by sending theirs to California pathology labs. They said Florida was not a good place for that.
What to do for the lower level of the population? We are not all RICH, or upper middle class?
A primary school teacher, or police constable earns a salary of about $300 bz a week. Cost of living easily is double this, even at the middle class level, and poorer people.
At any given time, there are at least 5 people undergoing cancer treatments per week in some facilities. Belize has a population of 330,000.
This tumor fills up all the empty spaces inside my neck, pressing up against the jugular vein, the pulmonary artery, some vein carrying blood to the brain, and when it swells it presses on the tri-geminal nerve, which fans out on the outside of the skull and up over the top of the head. When it presses on that, you get excruciating pain. It's not all the time, inflammation pills work in reducing the swelling, which I take every 12 hours. I am takin NO PROXINA 500 milligram for that.
I am taking cur-cumin twice a day and colloidal silver, ( from Health Food Store in Spanish Lookout, ) ( home herbal type remedies ),supposed to kill bad bacteria inside cancer cells. Also a copper pill, once a day.
Otherwise my health is good. Working normal for 75 years old, no other lymph nodes effected. Just the right side of neck is effected.
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My wife Silvia likes all those autopsy shows on TV and would have liked to be a forensic scientist, if she had her life to live over again. But she does have some medical books, and one of these; is the encylopedia thick book on terminology, called the MERK MANUAL, 16 TH EDITION. ( throwaway book from a library discard pile in Florida ) She was using the lab report from the slide sample taken from the drainage of this tumor lump, as a bookmark in the Merk Manual and we just re-found it. Anyway I had made a mistake, I had been called the result a Streppoccocus bacteria. But my memory was wrong. The lab report for the slide, said the drainage was STAPHYLOCOCCUS EPIDERMIDIS. I guess there is a big difference?
Anyway, we can't do anything for a couple of weeks, run out of money for the high priced private sector medical mafia in the port of Belize City. The recommended doctors at KMH, went to Mexico City for a symposium until the 23 rd of October, then I was searching and found this Belize Cancer Clinic in Dangriga. The website is great and results great, so decided to go with this Dr. Grant of the Belize Cancer Clinic. The case statistics were great on his website, and nobody else in Belize as doctors or clinics have any statistics anyway. So no way to judge them and their prices in the private sector are way out of my pricing ability. Have to wait until Dr Grant comes down. Read his website it is fantastic the job he is doing. So we decided to do some home amateur diagnosis, considering the professional doctor establishment are all over the map. As they say in the stock market, a monkey throwing darts at a paper on the wall, with a list of stocks, or in this case, a diagnosis, does better. ( grin )
AMATEUR NIGHT MYSTERY DIAGNOSIS continues at home:
1) The Staphylococcus epidermidis result on the lab slide in dead cells, they call it necropolis, something or other in medical latin jargon. Never took latin! I had remembered the name wrong, and been calling it streptoccus, which was incorrect. Anyway, the slide with the drainage from the tumor or lump, had dead cells, some blood and the staph bacteria. The family doctor prescribed the recommended anti-biotic for it, which did absolutely NOTHING.
2) The MERK MANUAL says it could be an a) abcess, b) an infection, or c) a foreign body. The dead cells apparently indicate, it is not a cancer???? I may be wrong on this, but this is amateur night diagnosis in the absence of medical people. a) If it was an infection, it would have responded to the antibiotic, and I've had a pig tail bucket full of all kinds of antibiotics over the past year and a half. About three ordinary blood tests, and then this slide test of the drainage from the lump on the side of my neck. All blood tests ordinary type came back NO INFECTION. Only INFLAMMATION. Antibiotics have done nothing to stop the outflow of material in this stuff clogging up my neck area. Anti-inflammatory stuff works to relieve pain and size of tumor.
3) The source is inside the neck, there is inflammation you can see, the doctors with a light and mirror say on the right wall side of the throat. The cause of the irritation and inflammation must be on the inside. I can certainly feel it, when I swallow. I've had this same spot inflamed now for 18 months. Now we have eliminated INFECTION by deduction. The other two causes are ABCESS, or FOREIGN BODY.
3) About two years ago, I had an abcess on the skin behind the ear on the same side. My family doctor, did a half hour office squeezing and cutting and finally found the source, as a piece of calcium, about the size of a grain of rice. He cured that. Took it out and gave me as a souvenier. Apparently I can grow calcium inside the neck? Never heard of that before. So thinking that might be the type of FOREIGN BODY, about a year ago, I did an ultra sound, but the technician couldn't find a foreign body at that time. This doesn't eliminate the foreign body idea, but it is mentioned in the MERK MANUAL, and it is mentioned again as a possible, on the BIOPSY report. I see it mentioned as one of many things possible in the MERK manual.
Ultra Sound that I did, the technician said, does not see soft body tissue. I think it must be from the slide test area, and there was no calcium thingy. Nothing this amateur eye could identify either on the CT SCAN photos; and it says on a separate sheet, that the GRAM STAIN, RARE PMN,SM FEW GOC ( single and in pairs ) on the slide exam for drainage. Don't know what those initials mean, but the wife will ask the Drugstore later in the week.
4) So assuming that FOREIGN BODY is ruled out, and INFECTION is ruled out. That leaves ABCESS as a possible cause. The female Cuban doctor on Caye Caulker, made that diagnosis, in three minutes flat, after looking inside my throat and noting the pink inflamed skin, across from the right tonsil. Also five minutes of listening to my history, of forest fire and dry season smoke and all that. Perhaps she is right after all? I hopes so!
5) The biopsy came up with dead cells, bit of blood and nothing else. Might have missed the abcess, if Dr. Cobb went into the tumor mound, with the biopsy needle; it is then NOT A TUMOR, but just accumulated debris of dead cells and puss. My amateur home diagnosis deduction! Which will mean surgery, to clear out the abcess and the dead cell crap filling on all the vacant places in the neck. The pressure on the roof of the throat from the debris is pronounced now. Will eventually obstruct my being able to eat. Surgery has got to be a bummer, as it involves major arteries, veins and nerves in a congested area.
6) I don't know what a tumor actually is? But this is probably dried puss, dead blood and dead cells, my amateur idea? The alternative is one of two types of cancers. Since the biopsy only found dead cells, as an amateur I would be tempted to strike that idea out? Nor has there been any other lymph areas affected.
Anyway, we wait and see what the experienced CANCER SPECIALIST, Dr. Grant will have to say, when he arrives in Belize. He's the expert, but we are playing Sherlock Holmes the famous detective here and having fun doing it. ( Sunday night Oct. 14th, 2012. ) LOT OF PAIN TODAY SPORADICALLY. I LET THE PAIN PILL GO, AS I NAPPED AND LOST TRACK OF THE TIME AND MEMORY OF WHEN I LAST TOOK A PAIN PILL
Cancer treatment in Belize by PRIVATE SECTOR FOR PROFIT clinics and hospitals have been reported to cost between $55,000 and over a $100,000. There is no valuation on Karl Heusner Hospital for the government to compare with though? I ran across on the internet were $550,000 USA was charged for the same cancer treatment received here in Belize, someplace in the USA. I can believe it. Guatemala and Mexico are reported to charge between $30,000 bz and $100,000 bz. I kind of had made up my mind to just die. Everything being far out of anything I could afford. Cancer is not for poor people! Just die kiddoo!
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