Forks in the Road

During Phil’s last two years of high school, we tried all the well known treatments available to us for leukemia. One summer I took him to Kankakee, Illinois, for hydrotherapy, which was getting some good results, though we never heard the end of any patient’s story. An acquaintance from Boise, Bernice Howell, was also in Kankakee at that time, and we had lunch and/or dinner together. I prepared breakfasts for Phil and me in the kitchenette of our hotel suite. I recall purchasing a sharp knife for slicing potatoes to fry for Phil. I still have that knife.

From Kankakee, we flew to Nashville and stayed as guests at a cousin’s house for two days. Phil enjoyed spending time with his two second cousins, SuJean and Faye. While there Phil developed a terrific headache. Instructions were to call his oncologist if anything like this happened. We got the number of a Nashville pharmacy and then I called his doctor in Boise. The prescription was called in and we picked it up. That took care of the headache, but I wanted to get Phil home, closer to his doctor.

That summer we also had another trip to southern California for more Laetrile. This was a shorter stay than that of the year before. Even with regular chemotherapy and the Laetrile, the relapses continued to occur. Then we heard of a doctor in Greece who treated leukemia patients, and a friend of ours took his wife there for treatment of her brain tumor. He highly recommended it for Phil. His wife seemed to be and tested out to be so much better. We read a book the Greek doctor wrote and opted for the trip to Athens. At first, John had in mind I would accompany Phil, but I pointed out that if Phil got sick there and went into a public rest room, I could not be with him. He could faint in there. That convinced John he needed to travel.

While it was a long plane ride, with a stopover in Rome, the trip to Athens had some highly interesting features. Our daughter Susan, who was modeling fashions in Europe at the time, joined them for a few days. They discovered Athens came alive at night, when everyone was out on the streets. The first night this started when John was just going to bed. What a surprise from the noises on the street. So they began to go out and observe what was going on. People walked to get somewhere while others just stood or sat to visit friends and acquaintances. They did a little shopping too. John brought me and our daughters-in-law beautiful black vases with depictions of Greek figures (gods?) in 24-carat gold. Phil bought a gift for his bookkeeping teacher, who had given him money to spend on himself while there.

They were gone a month and arrived home on Christmas day, rather night, around midnight. I had prepared a big Christmas dinner for midnight, not knowing if they would even be interested in food at that hour. Sleep proved to be more inviting, but the food was tempting. They did eat lightly. Along with some family members, there were guests presentthe couple who had gone to Greece earlier, for the brain tumor treatment. A short time later, this lady died from brain cancer and Phil was back with his chemotherapy and Laetrile.

To be continued.

♥