Posted by Admin
Post Date : Wednesday October 25 2006

Name: Mark Olsztyn
Date: Sunday, July 02, 2000 8:32 PM
Diagnosis: Oligodendro Astrocytoma IV
Email: markomecko@yahoo.com


UPDATES- July 2, 2000- September 7, 2000- January 9, 2001 - May 9, 2001 - October 3, 2001 - February 26, 2002 - May 15, 2004

LATEST UPDATE- March 18, 2007



Saint Patrick's Day, 1997

Saint Patrick's Day, 1997. I received the news of my recurrent brain tumor with dread and shock. It had come back after six years, almost to the day, and this time it wasn't a low grade Oligodendro Astrocytoma but a GBM. I imagined what I had before was just a mere Tyrannasaurus, now I had a head full of Velociraptors. The doctors considered my case a medical anomaly, but that was certainly no comfort. I was very despondent. I felt hopeless;
the GBM support group I attended (for the first and last time in the basement of Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital) only magnified my sense of doom.

Although the left-frontal lobe tumor was operable and was resected on April 7th using the latest surgical techniques, the prognosis remained grim. Radiation followed by PCV Chemotherapy was the prescribed post-operative therapy. When I asked the surgeon 'How long have I got to live?' he could only answer "That depends on how you respond to the therapy. We don't know. Right now, all we can do is throw everything at this and hope for the best."

I was desperate to know that somebody had survived this nightmare. My father, a doctor involved in alternative medicine, sent me my first bottle of Poly-MVA only a week after my surgery. I started taking it immediately along with the conventionally prescribed treatments recommended by my surgeon.

My first post-op, post-radiation scan was on July 25th and was clean! I relocated from Boston to Phoenix to continue with part two: chemotherapy, and to be with my family for The End, that I was sure was coming soon. In spite of my clean scan and the fact that the doctors in Phoenix downgraded my diagnosis to an Oligo 4/4 (less of an anomaly but not much less of a threat), I was still given over to the idea that it was just a matter of time before it came back to finish me off. The irony is that I was so certain of my imminent death, that I decided to stop paying taxes. You know that old saying about Death and Taxes being the only sure things in life?

Now I am paying for my doubt in Poly-MVA, but I can't say I mind it at all! I have had clean MRI scans to this day and I consider Poly-MVA - plus my belief in God's great wisdom - to be the cornerstones of my recovery. I used to associate St. Patrick's day with gloom, now I celebrate it as the beginning of my lucky streak! A new chance at life.


2nd UPDATE:

September 7, 2000

I got the results back from last night's MRI. I am still clear and clean. My neurooncologist said I may now space the scan intervals from three to four months! And to think I started out with a scan every two months... Thank You God!!

The immobilizing fear that once gripped me is beginning to lose its hold on my life. Someday, I hope to be free of it entirely. That goal is made possible for me by just two things: my Higher Power and Poly-MVA. I know this to be true.

Keeping The Faith Alive,

Mark Olsztyn


3rd UPDATE:

January 9, 2001

Hello Dear Friends and Family Members,

I want to inform everyone who is near and dear to me that I have had my 16th clean scan. Yesterday confirmed what I could only hope was true, there are no changes from the last one that was done last September.

In these cases there is literally no room for "improvement," all you want is that things remain as they are, which for me means no signs of
any growth. The physician I spoke with was optimistic. I just need to keep doing what I'm doing. To keep on keeping on.

Love to All

Marko


4th UPDATE:

May 9, 2001

To All Who Seek Hope

I am very happy to report that I have had my 17th clean scan since my operation, in 1997, to remove a grade IV Oligodendroastrocytoma of the left frontal lobe. My doctors are very encouraged by my status and I believe that means that they think my prognosis is improved. I just can't get them to actually say that. What matters most is that I think so. I feel very confident that I will reach the ten year mark, a watershed set
for me by many gloom-and-doom allopathic statisticians who informed me that only five to seven percent make it that far. I plan on going at least another 65 years. I want to see my great-grandchildren!

God Bless All of Us,

Marko

5th UPDATE:

October 3, 2001

Dear Friends and Family Members,

Yesterday I received news that my latest scan, my eighteenth since my operation, was, once again, clean.

I am grateful but not surprised, so I feel more joyful than elated and relieved. Somehow, this time I knew with nearly absolute certainty what the results would be before I saw them for myself.

Over the past few months, with no real concerted effort on my part, I have undergone a subtle but significant transformation that has given me real
peace of mind and spirit. I can't say for sure what the catalyst for it was, I only know that I am changed. whether it lasts or not only time will tell, but I feel that I am on a clearly marked path that is leading me to something good.

I would like to acknowledge all of you who have supported me in my struggle with cancer either by praying for me or by wishing me well and thinking of me fondly. It's all good, and I thank each one of you for your contribution to my wellness.

God bless you all.

Mark

6th UPDATE

Scan Number 19 (February 26, 2002) was Clean (again).

It gives me enormous satisfaction to report that my last MRI, performed under the full moon (it's a ritual that comforts me) in Phoenix, Arizona's Barrow's Neurological Institute, was unchanged. No sign of any abnormal growth, just a hole in the familiar gray salmon steak that is my brain when it is viewed on the lateral axis. That makes nineteen now since my operation in April of 1997. It will soon be five years since my diagnosis and I am as cancer-free as I can possibly be. I look forward to the mid-way point and to sharing my progress with everyone concerned with it.

Each day is a gift that I am grateful for, each moment is a fugwalha. -

Mark

7th UPDATE
May 15, 2004

Mark and his family enjoying a visit
to Heidelberg Castle. May 15, 2004."



My last scan was unchanged. So similar was it to the one before and, for
that matter, to the one before that and, well, all the scans since about
1998 that my doctor felt I am at the point where I can space them out to one
per year. Now, unless you happen to know this man, it is difficult to
describe the optimism in my prognosis that his decision conveys. He is,
after all, the Chief of Neurooncology and as such doesn't often see cases
like mine which go from requiring a scan every two months to one per year
within the span of five years.

It was six years, almost to the day, between my first brain tumor in April
of 1991 and its recurrence as something considerably more dire in April of
1997. Though, statistically, the odds are still against me I already know
that I will be tumor-free this April, six years from the date of my last
operation, when my wife and my two children and I will be walking on the
pebbly beaches of the Côte d'Azure celebrating those three precious, God
given gifts: Life, Health and Family.



8th UPDATE
March 18, 2007

I am fast approaching my tenth year without cancer. When I consider that I barely made it past year six when I had the recurrence from which I have been recovering these past ten, I realize what a milestone awaits this extraordinary span of wellbeing and good fortune. And yet, I know that the fight is not over. Despite the prognostications we've all heard almost every week that cancer has finally been cured or that the vaccine has been discovered, it might never be over for as long as I draw breath. Knowing this has not diminished the significance of the day for me or my accomplishment. To survive ten years without a recurrence was my goal. On April 7 of this glorious year I will touch down. My most vulnerable desire will become fulfilled.

It will be a Saturday that marks my anniversary, a day preordained for celebration with family. How perfect. How roseate. How ordinary, just like any other Saturday. As monumental an event as it is to me I have to accept that it will pass without festivity or even a comment from those closest to me. It might have been different if only… (I don't know how to complete this thought.)

I have been blessed and I consider myself extremely lucky to be alive but not everything in my life is as I would like it to be. My wife, my sole partner for over half my life, wants to go her own way now. Our two children, mere infants ten years ago, have grown into two distinct adolescents with their own talents and tendencies. They have demonstrated their concern about our decision to separate but have not displayed anything like opposition to the idea.

Looking back, it is clear that the fissure lines of our relationship were the direct result of my illness. It would be impossible for me to measure the magnitude of shock Belinda felt at seeing me, her partner, a once perfectly healthy 26 year-old man, suddenly writhing in the throes of a grand mal seizure and then, just a few hours later, learning that this horrifying display was caused by a malignant brain tumor. That was in 1991 and it was only the first one, a comfortably low-grade oligo. We were both much more resilient back then. Our ability to withstand and recover from this difficulty would be tested over the next six years until the day we both were informed that it had come back. By that time we were married and I was working full time. Josephine, the first of our two children, prompted our hasty union in 1995 and our second, Nicolas, was not yet two months old on that black Monday in March. It was St. Patrick's Day and the green shirt I wore to work on that day would be one I would never want to see again. There was no luck for me on that day, only the nauseating, slow realization that some things can't be outrun, no matter how far you've managed to distance yourself from the past.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is a trite expression but it applies to my marriage and to my life. Cancer killed my marriage but it has made me stronger. It has been my acquiescent companion, in many ways the center of my life. It has given me a purpose, to survive and to tell anyone who will listen that it is weak. It can be defeated, routed or at least pinned down indefinitely until something else comes along to escort it out of your body. I believe this statement applies to Poly MVA.

[By now, you should already know that "Poly" is a thoroughly non-invasive, completely non-toxic treatment specifically formulated to fight cancer and that only we survivors are allowed to say that without fear of federal prosecution.]

I have been using it every day since I returned from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston on a blustery April afternoon in 1997, to my small apartment in Watertown where my two children, Desmond, our cat, my wife and a box containing six bottles of Poly MVA were waiting for me. I have been scanned regularly and the news is always the same.

"Whatever it is that you're doing," say the doctors, "you should continue it." Most of them really don't want to know what it is that I am doing. I've given up trying to tell them. My message is for you, not for the doubting physicians with their cynicism and blind faith in pharmacology.

My message is for all of you desperate and terrified cancer patients, my extended family. I was once just like you. Hear me! Do all you can to support your immune system. That is the first step. Apply the Hippocratic Oath to yourself: First, do no harm. Your body knows how to eradicate this disease, it just needs your help. You may need to radically alter your lifestyle to achieve this. If so, the benefit will be two-fold. Use Poly MVA. Your body will take notice and try to return the favor.

Treat yourself with compassion and kindness, patience and acceptance. Be tender with your heart. Care. Release your anger. Let go.

Ultimately, this is a journey you must take alone so be your own best friend along the way. Recovery is a long journey so bring plenty of water. If ever you need encouraging, consider these words from Edward Abbey: "May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome and dangerous leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds."

Mark