During a visit to an acupuncturist, whom I had been seeing for the past two months,I was introduced to a patient who had gone through everything I was about to undergo. Her name was Rita and she was an angel.

She told me about the treatments she went through which wasn’t conventional chemo. It was called IPT. She recommended I research it and referred me to her doctor. From what she described, this was the option I knew existed; the one that I was waiting for.  As soon as I got home I looked it up and decided this was for me. I shared the information with my family and friends and they were on board.

I couldn't wait to call the oncologist and cancel my appointments. She was not happy with the news and insisted I needed chemo. I politely thanked her but I was going to move forward with my decision.

I set up a consultation to learn more about IPT and the doctor walked me through the process. I was thrilled with what I heard and decided to do my treatments there. He too suggested getting a port which I went ahead and scheduled for July along with my first IPT session.

In addition he recommended I have blood drawn and sent to Germany. The purpose of the Germany test was to grow tumors from any cancerous cells that might still be circulating in my blood. From these tumors they would try a series of different chemo treatments to see which had the best results. Based on the results of these tests, the chemo recommended by Sloan were the ones with the least effect.

My IPT schedule was as follows:

• Twice a week for 4 weeks
• Once a week for a month
• Once every other week for a month
• Once a month for 6 months (what is considered the maintenance period)

In addition to the above I was took several vitamins and minerals. After the first month or so, I also added high doses of vitamin C after each IPT session. I started with 50 grams = 50k milligrams and went up to 80 grams over the next few months.

IPT - Insulin Potentiation Therapy is a new approach to treating cancer that involves no new drug products. The therapy uses insulin, and takes advantage of the powerful, cell-killing effects of ordinary chemotherapy drugs, but used in very low doses.

On July 1st, I had surgery to get the port placed. It was an outpatient procedure, so I went in early morning and was out by late afternoon. Not much recovery time was needed but it was a Friday and I had the weekend to get used to it. The port was placed above my left breast and below my collar bone. Aside from some stares (while the area healed), putting on a seat belt was the biggest annoyance I had to deal with. The belt pressed against the port so I had to place it on the side of my arm.

On July 8th, I went in for my first IPT session. My sister accompanied me as we didn't know how it would affect me. When I got there I was greeted by a wonderful nurse, Maddy. She walked me step-by-step through the process explaining the purpose of each medicine. Part of the process involved lowering my insulin level from around 80 to as low as 30-40. Over the next few sessions my insulin level would be dropped to high 20s-low 30s. Don't try this at home!

As soon as I reached my low point the chemo was administered. Soon after that my insulin level was raised back up via medicine and "approved" food/drinks which I brought with me. Within minutes I was back to normal. The whole process from start to finish took no more than 45 minutes. Over the next few weeks this time increased due to the vitamin C drips which I did after each IPT session. Depending on the amount of vitamin C this took an additional 30 minutes to an hour.
 
I was lucky enough to be able to work from home after IPT the first week or two but not because I felt weak but because commuting back into the city where I worked didn't make sense. After that, I set up my appointments for early morning so I could go back to work right after. I did this until I was done with all my sessions.

Being able to go about my normal daily routine helped make this process seem only like a small inconvenience. For the next few sessions the only side effect I noticed was some constipation. A month later, I started noticing my hair falling out. It wasn't a lot but it was more than usual. Toward the end of the year I had a little bald spot on the back of my head and my hair was definitely a thinner. Maddy mentioned it was not something that was supposed to happen but that it could be due to the types of chemo I was on. She told me not to worry and assured me all of my hair wouldn't all fall out. She was right. After moving on to my maintenance period (once a month) my hair stopped falling out.

On September 19th I had a PET CT Scan. The results were normal/negative! I would do a scan every 6 months for the first year and a half.

I decided to cut my hair shorter and went darker as well. I wanted to experiment and this felt like the right time. I went to my hair stylist and told him what I was going through, showed him my bald spot and he worked his magic. He made my hair look richer and fuller.

PET CT Scan with normal results!