I did not hear from her again until June 2008, when their doctors reported that the tumors surgically removed from his liver were all dead, and that a colonoscopy found no tumors in his rectum or colon. A truly amazing and gratifying turn of events.
What follows below is our email correspondence, modified to remove identifying information about her and her family.
Hi Mr. Cohen,
My husband was diagnosed with colorectal cancer 2 months ago, unfortunately it has spread to the liver. Small spots but multiple. We have a 11 month old baby who I am still nursing. After reading Catherina's article and yours a few days before he started treatment (about 3 weeks ago) I decided to start giving my husband my milk. I have a friend who is an IBCLC [an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant] and she told me about it. I am a strong believer about breast milk benefits anyway and that is why I am still nursing our baby.
My husband is drinking 6 to 8 ounces per day first thing in the morning as well as other supplements to ease chemotherapy side effects. We are doing the best we can. And I am very faith full about it. We'll see !
I thought I would share this with you.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
A
Hi A,
Thanks for your note and words of appreciation. There's a lot of information
on my web site
http://www.cohensw.com/mvpcsg_nov99_text.html
about breast milk and cancer, including a number of downloadable scientific
journal articles.
I'm sorry to hear about your husband's condition. It must be very difficult for all of you, especially with a young child. I hope your milk helps his maintenance or recovery and mitigates the side effects of his medical treatments. I hope you can keep a journal of the experience, including effects of the milk. This may eventually be of help to others.
Your husband is lucky to have your support. I wish you all as happy a Thanksgiving as you can have under the circumstances and the best of luck for a speedy and full and permanent recovery. Please let me know if I can be of any assistance.
howard
Thank you Mr. Cohen. I will read your web site ! We are just trying to be as positive as we can under the circumstances, live happily every day as we have since we married and enjoy our beautiful baby boy ! He is actually feeling good so far and being very positive about his healing. I will keep you posted and if you think of any other good thing he could take let me know !
Thanks again,
A,
A few quick questions:
What article of Catherina's are you referring
to?
If you didn't know of my web site, how did
you find me or find out about me?
All the best,
howard
Good morning Mr. Cohen,
When my friend [AH] IBCLC ... told me to start pumping for my husband I googled benefits of breast milk for cancer and that's how I found both Catherina's and your information. I was very encouraged to do it after knowing you did it and had success with it. Even though this is a different situation and a different cancer I know that as you say breast milk can't hurt us, and may help a lot !. It is a wonderful thing ! I have read several different articles of Catherina. They all pretty much tell you the same thing. How she discovered HAMLET and how it has killed different cancer cells in her lab. , etc. Then, this last Friday 11/16 [AH] read and e-mailed to me your updated article on KTVU and that's when I decided I would share my story with you.
Anyway, I just warmed 8.5 oz of milk for my husband this morning ! He is going for his second chemotherapy today. I will spend my lunch time with him.
Have a great Thanksgiving !
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061209/bob8.asp
Hi A,
Enjoy the holidays, as best you all can.
howard
Hello Mr. Cohen,
It has been a long time since I last sent you an e-mail...I hope you are doing well and still drinking your breast milk smoothies once in a while. As you may remember from my e-mail my husband was diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer with metastasis in his liver 9 months ago in 9/07...Back in October he started getting very strong Chemotherapies (3 different drugs at the same time) and 7-8 oz of my breast milk every morning..He seemed to be responding well to treatment every time he got a catscan done...This past June 20th good news started to show!...He got 15% of his liver resected...about 8 tumors were removed and the rest of his liver seemed clean to the Doctor. Three days after surgery the Doc. walks in the hospital room with the great news that all 8 tumors he removed were already dead !.. so he recommended not to do local chemo to the liver (as planned) and go right to the colon (where the primary tumor was) instead to take care of the second surgery....The plan was to do local chemotherapy to the liver and also give chemotherapy and radiation to the tumor in the rectum before the surgery...What a surprise when they did the ultrasound this past June 27th...They found no evidence of rectal tumor and no evidence of cancer in his colon !...The tumor vanished ! and also the biopsy of his colon came out negative...They were very surprised and mentioned to my husband that they don't get the chance to give this kind of news!!....So, as you can imagine we are all celebrating and we know and strongly believe breast milk did a lot !!....I thought I would share this wonderful news with you... I also found a new article about another person using breast milk as cancer treatment so I am pasting it here for you to read in case you haven't read it before..
Sincerely,
A
Hi A,
What a wonderful message and an uplifting story! I am so happy for all of you that your breast milk has been able to work a miracle for your husband. I know you'll continue long after all the cancer seems to be gone, as a preventive measure. It also may have helped him cope with the side effects of the chemo/drugs. It sounds like his recovery has astounded his MDs. Will any of them give credence to the efficacy of milk?
His recovery is more amazing than mine, as I had little cancer of a non- aggressive nature. Your husband seemed to have had a lot which had already spread.
May his recovery continue and be complete and long lasting. May you spread the word about how you achieved this.
When you write up your story, may I link to it from my web site? Or host it there if you don't have a web site or blog of your own? Yours is also an important story, and one that seems to be leading to a happy ending -- the ability to get back into the rhythms of everyday life looms ahead.
My word of caution is that he should not stop taking the milk. After the cancer has been gone for a while, I think he can cut back on the quantity, as I have. But I know of a couple of people who beat their cancer, stopped milk, and eventually the cancer came back and killed them. A cautionary tale.
Thanks for the good news.
howard
Unfortunately I don't think they will ever give credit to it...I didn't even bother to mention it to our local oncologist since I thought they only believe in drugs that have been approved by the FDA , but I did mention it to the surgeon Doctor in [another city] (who is a great Doctor) ..He did not make any comments about it, so I figured they wouldn't really care about breast milk...We know it works and hopefully someday we will be able to prove it...My husband's cancer was so aggressive that my milk must have done something for the tumor to just vanish after he was told it was too big to operate and because how close it was to the rectum he was probably going to end up living with a colonostomy for the rest of his life...He does want to write a story about all the things we did together to fight this thing as soon as he is fully recovered ...We don't have a personal web site or blog.... I will sure let you know as soon as we have our story to spread the word ...For now we will continue doing his check ups every 3 months hoping it will never come back and of course, he will continue drinking my milk for as long as I can do it ....
Have a great day and I hope it is not very smokey there as it is here !
A
A,
In order to make this way of killing cancer -- the use of human breast milk -- known and more of the mainstream, a lot of research needs to be done to focus in on the mechanisms, how the body deals with HAMLET, transports it, uses it, breaks it down, etc. And to get the research done and funded, members of the medical and academic establishments have to become both aware and intrigued by it. The more detailed and accurate and uplifting cases such as yours and mine are out there, the more possible that becomes.
I'd like to add your story to my web site. I'll remove identifying information.
I passed it on to two people who I respect greatly. One is the director of the Mothers' Milk Bank in San Jose. She has been a great support to me (and others) using mothers' milk to treat cancer. Her milk bank is a source to consider when/if you stop lactating.
The other is the scientist who originally discovered (in 1995) that mothers' milk kills cancer cells. Your story has given him a boost in motivating him to return to cancer studies and to involve colleagues, now that he has his own lab at a major university.
It is clear to me that your milk worked wonders for your husband, literally saved his life. Without milk, I would certainly have survived, but with a diminished quality of life.
It has been hazy here for a couple of weeks now, due to the fires near Big Sur and those in Santa Cruz county. The heat is also something we're not that used to in the Bay Area. I'm grateful that we finally installed an air conditioner last year.
Be well, survive, and prosper, and ever appreciative of coming thru your family's ordeal.
howard
Hi Mr. Cohen,
I hope you and your wife are doing well. My husband is still on the road for a full recovery..it is going slow but hopefully will be for life....I just happened to read my husband's story on your website. Thank you for removing identifying information. we don't want to do anything yet until we know he has been cancer free for a while...Of course , he is still drinking my milk. He is having his first catscan (post surgery) in September and hopefully we will continue to receive good news...He is still very weak and low energy though....