Wednesday 24 July 2013

Lloyd Pye diagnosed with Aggressive B-Cell Lymphoma Cancer

Sorry I haven't been here much of late, I've been swamped again! I will be back posting again shortly, but for now I felt the need to repost this message from Starchild researcher, Lloyd Pye.

My hope is that as many people as possible will do anything they can to help. I genuinely believe that his research holds one of the keys to unlocking the "bigger picture" (whatever it may end up looking like!) and, having personally talked at length with him, I find him to be a tirelessly dedicated researcher and a truly sincere human being. My most positive thoughts and wishes go out to him. Here is the message describing his current situation:

Outwardly, I am the picture of health, but in my upper abdomen lurks a tumor the size and shape of a softball. Its formal name is "Aggressive B-Cell Lymphoma." It is a fairly common cancer that is very amenable to treatment, but that treatment has to be as aggressive as the tumor or death ensues.

As you might have guessed, to do that I will need massive amounts of help from YOU, from each of you to the degree you can manage. I want to treat my cancer by alternative means, not the standard "one-size-fits-all" approach of chemotherapy and radiation applied with elephant-gun impact on one and all. That's not how I want to fight.

Instead, I want to go to an alternative clinic in Europe with very good success at treating lymphomas like mine. As with all cancer treatments, this one is very expensive, in the low tens of thousands of dollars. Here in the U.S. it would be in the high tens of thousands of dollars. Either way, I have to pay, and I simply do not have the money to pay those bills. To do so, I will need rather large amounts of money, both for the initial treatment, which is one full month, followed by subsequent treatments two or three or more times, depending on the kind of follow-up I will require.

The bottom line is that I need an enormous amount of help to save myself, and I am extremely lucky that I have friends like the people on this list who can put themselves in my shoes and feel sympathy for me. This is an ordeal of the highest magnitude, as I'm sure you all understand full well. If you can help me with this, and are willing to do so, in this special instance. I am asking for donations FOR ME, and to do that you will have to go to my personal webpage http://www.lloydpye.com/

HOW DID THIS DISASTER UNFOLD?

The following information if for those of you who want to know more about the details of how it happened. If you're pressed for time, this is not really necessary for you to know. It is my recounting of how it unfolded. Some will want to know this, many will not. Make your own choice.
On June 15th I had a special celebratory dinner in an Ethiopian restaurant. I drank cardamom tea, which is common in such places. An hour later I was in the throes of a very serious gallbladder attack, the first time such a thing has ever happened to me. I always have excellent health checkups, which kept me from believing I was having a heart attack, but the pain was quite severe in and around my upper abdomen, and it did not let up for four hours! In that time, though, I found out that cardamom tea could induce such attacks on those with "clogged" gallbladders, and it turned out that I had one.

After a few more bouts with my gallbladder, I went to my doctor on July 9th. He palpated my abdomen and very quickly informed me that in addition to a gallbladder problem, I had a rather large mass that didn't belong in my upper abdomen. He was very concerned and suggested an ultrasound. Fortunately, am now old enough to be enrolled in Medicare, so I was able to afford my 20% co-pay for this, and for the CAT scan that followed. There could be no doubt about it--I had a softball-sized tumor growing inside me. What was it?

A biopsy was scheduled for July 12th. An appointment was made with an oncologist for July 17th. In the meantime, my family and I convinced ourselves that it had to be a non-malignant fatty tumor because those have been known to run in one branch of my family. However, those were just under the skin, not large and internal. Additionally, I have always taken care of myself, taking vitamins every day, watching my weight, not drinking or smoking, intermittently exercising, and always getting "excellent" reports for my yearly physical since I turned 60 (I'll turn 67 in September).

I did not strike anyone who knows me well as someone who would be a likely candidate for a malignancy, much less one the size of the tumor I so clearly had. So I went to the oncologist thinking I could dodge the bullet, but the bullet got me. He told me it was a bad report, aggressive B-cell lymphoma, and I had to act and act fast to stop the tumor's growth and save my life. So that is what I'm determined to do.....with your help.

I can't begin to handle this alone. If you've followed me at all in these Bytes of Pye over the past few years, you know I live on a shoestring, very low to the ground to avoid charges by skeptics and critics that I'm "just in it for the money." It's their classic criticism of people like me because it works. If they can illustrate instances where we are trying to provide for ourselves in any way other than the ways they provide for themselves (writing and lecturing), they pounce. Thus, I have always tried to keep my efforts to writing and lecturing, but in alternative fields that is flatly no way to make a living.

Now my attitude is, "Screw 'em!" They can criticize me all they like. I have lived by their strictures as long as I could. Now I have to live by whatever means are available, and asking for your help to bail me out of this terrible jam is the most viable method available to me to accumulate the large amount of money I need in the shortest possible time. Please donate NOW.

WHAT ARE MY NEXT STEPS?

In only a few days, on July 29, I am scheduled to leave for England for two months, during which I intended to lecture around the country. Now I have no idea how many of those dates I will be able to make because I desperately need to get myself into a cancer clinic that can do for me what needs to be done, and everything needs to go at the fastest pace possible. Right now my tumor is softball sized. In only a few weeks it will be the size of a honeydew melon, and it will be squeezing the life out of the vital organs it is already pressing against, including my liver, pancreas, spleen, gallbladder (which kicked off my initial problem), and then my heart and lungs.
If enough of you respond with serious help for me, which I have to believe you will do, then I will enroll for treatment by the middle of August, and as I said, the initial round of treatment is one month. As soon as I can get my LloydPye.com website changed over to the new format, it will include a blog. Or maybe I'll go with a blog on Facebook. I'm still trying to resolve that issue. But soon I will have a blog going that will recount my experiences at the clinic, and I hope it will provide help for others in my same situation, to tell them what to expect if they choose the alternative route I want to take.

I firmly believe I can win this if I get enough support. As of right now, I am healthy. I have a good constitution. I have a good frame of mind. I have always been a scrappy type, willing and able to take on difficult challenges. This is, of course, one of any life's greatest challenges, a fight with Death.
I'm not asking anyone to donate to help me lose this fight. I'm asking you to help me win it. And I REALLY need help this time. Again, before all is said and done the total cost will be tens of thousands of dollars. I think anyone who knows anything about cancer treatments anywhere in the world will vouch for that. I live hovering around the poverty level. But not now, not any more.
I have to drop that life and take on a new one. My old life is over, and now I have to forge a new one. I have to become "a cancer survivor," and with enough help from enough of you, my Starchild and Byte of Pye family, I can and will do it, and you are free to follow along on my journey every step of the way. I hope you will. I think it will be quite a learning experience!

My heartfelt thanks to you all for reading this exceptionally long missive, and I know all of you wish me the very best outcome. I'm sure I can achieve it.

Lloyd Pye
July 19th, 2013
www.LloydPye.com