PAST

This story takes us back to my adventures with the Brethren Volunteer Service (BVS), as recounted in Hot Mess Express. After my excommunication from the San Antonio Catholic Worker House, I became sick as a dog for a week. Physically recovered, I flew home to southeastern Pennsylvania and stayed with my Nana. For the next week she was loving, but firm and clear that she wasn’t going to tolerate a twenty one year old college graduate who was a failure-to-launch. She had spent too many years watching the shenanigans of the neighbor biker boy Donny who was still living with his mom and dad—in his forties!

In the meantime, the BVS decided to give me a second chance. The High Desert Ranch in New Mexico had decided that I was indeed a hot mess, and retracted their acceptance. But, there was a Church of the Brethren (COB) camp and retreat center in Hooversville, PA which would be glad to have me. Hooversville is a tiny hamlet in Southwestern, PA, and Camp Harmony was miles from the nearest neighbor, a dairy farm. The position was for a Maintenance Director, with on-the-job training.

And so I arrived in the middle of Winter via Amtrak from Philadelphia’s 30th Street station. Philadelphians tend to think that Pennsylvania is, well, Philadelphia. The fact that the state extends at least an eight hour drive westward, and has a snow belt in the southwest to rival midwestern winters was not part of this southeastern Pennsylvanian’s consciousness.

The Winter and Spring were long and lonely. There was a lot of work to do on the buildings and around the camp preparing setting up for weekend retreats and preparing for the summer. During the weekdays, the camp secretary and director would be in the office and available, but at night I was the only person for miles. The upside was seeing the starry sky in all its heavenly glory and without the light pollution from the city. 1992 was also a heyday for country singer Garth Brooks, and considering that the only radio reception I got was AM, and two stations—both country—it was a good thing. I learned to like country music out of necessity.

Sundays meant traveling with the Camp Director, Neal Harvey, to regional congregations of the Church of the Brethren to make a presentation about the camp and raise funds. Neal would play a recording of campers singing the folk standard “The Garden Song” —listen to this version by John Denver appearing on The Muppet Show. It was an ear worm and still lingers in my brain on the occasion that I think of Camp Harmony….

As the snow began to clear, Wednesdays were work days with a group of up to ten retired men. We cut down Black Locust trees to make new fence posts and strung them with barbed wire to keep the neighboring cows off the camp property. We also began clearing land to make way for a planned new retreat center, today known as Faith Hall. All of this involved a lot of work with an old John Deere tractor, and chainsaws, neither of which had been part of my upbringing.

We took care, and no one was hurt during out efforts—except for one incident. Howard Fyock was a retired “coal cracker”, Pennsylvanian for coal miner. Like many old time coal miners, he had black lung. Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP), commonly known as “black lung disease,” occurs when coal dust is inhaled. Over time, continued exposure to the coal dust causes scarring in the lungs, impairing your ability to breathe. Considered an occupational lung disease, it is most common among coal miners.

I shit you not that Howard would be out there driving the old John Deere with his oxygen nasal cannula and the accompanying portable tank slung from his shoulders. There was an old gravel pit which we would dump the huge stumps we had dug out as we cleared the land. One day, Howard had the bucket end of the tractor elevated, with a large stump suspended below from a chain. As he approached the top of the gravel pit, there was a little too much swing to the stump, left to right, and the bucket was elevated just high enough that physics took over and the tractor began to tip. What happened next remains a marvelous miracle, and testimony to Howard’s quick thinking and spryness, even at the age of 80. He leapt off the tractor, in the opposite direction from which it was rolling, with his oxygen tank no less, and cleared the moving machine before it could crush him as it cartwheeled fifty feet down into the pit.

Neal and I visited Howard later that day in the hospital, and aside from some extensive bruising and a few broken ribs, he was already agitating to be discharged. The John Deere was also banged up, but after a visit to the shop to straighten out the engine splash guard and replace the damaged hydraulic lines, it was back in action.

I remember Howard and the other men who volunteered every week with a swell of love in my heart. Being a decent cook, I tried to show my appreciation for them by eschewing the basic fare of sandwiches, chips and iced tea, for more complicated and filling meals such as lasagna with garlic bread and salad, or chili with cornbread. Neal raised an eyebrow about the added expense, but that didn’t squash my light. He had a decent appetite himself, so I’m sure that helped.

When summer finally arrived, so did a whole community of staff and counselors, followed shortly afterwards by the campers. I had to surrender my apartment to the camp nurse, and move down to the lodge used for staff; those quarters had women on one side, men on the other, with a common room and kitchenette in the middle. Some of the lodge’s residents were still minors and as a result, even though I was what in Philadelphia street language would be called “a grown-ass man”, I was now theoretically under the nightly curfew watch of the camp nurse, with the young‘uns.

Always on the lookout for love and romantic adventure, I became friendly with one of the kitchen staff, a pretty young lass named Dawn. We managed to have a nice snuggle on the couch in the common lounge without any objections from our peers. What I hadn’t counted on was the late arrival of a camp counselor from Russia. Her name was Julia Samsonova, pronounced sam-Soo-no-va. We had eyes for each other from the start, with hers being dark, penetrating, and conspiratory.

About a week after Julia arrived, we ended up in the common lounge together one evening; she asked if I could play chess. Yes, indeed I could—badly, but I’d give it a go. It was unlike any chess game I have ever played, before or since, with the banter, saucy looks and a rising tension that left me so stirred up that I could hardly get to sleep that night. But what is a guy to do in the middle of a Christian summer camp, under the watchful eye of the camp nurse? Try to behave; try being the operative word.

I would leave you hanging if I didn’t share one last bit. Despite Neal’s generosity of heart in taking a chance on my hot mess and offering me a volunteer position, at the end of the summer I left Camp Harmony, and my volunteer commitment, early. There were a number of factors which, combined, led to this decision. It turned out that this region of the Church of the Brethren was more fundamentalist in nature, and I struggled with that. I also thought that volunteer doesn’t equate to servant, and Neal’s expectation of my position was that I would work 60-80 hour weeks throughout the summer, because previous volunteers in my position did. I have a strong work ethic, but this felt like exploitation of my good -faith intention to serve, and that didn’t sit well with me. I needed to move on.

The morning that I left Camp Harmony, Neal’s wife Karen had come to pick me up to take me to the train station. At the same time Julia was sneaking out of the window of my room and headed around the side of the staff building, Karen arrived at the front door and they made eye contact. Ooops. Karen wasn’t dumb, and put two and two together. I later learned that this news scandalized the COB community and, typical for small town gossip, lead to quite the storm of grandiose stories about how the Devil had influenced me, corrupted Julia and who-knows-else and who-knows-what. After we briefly considered her coming to Philadelphia to join me, Julia headed back to Russia. I wasn’t anywhere near ready for marriage, and the daunting logistics of obtaining an extended visa were enough to end our romance.

RECENT PAST

In 2018, my wife and I traveled to California to visit her father and his wife. Curt and Jane were high school sweethearts, who reunited after more than twenty years, several children each, and divorces from their respective spouses. They had recently purchased a large RV trailer and we took a small trip together to the coast, traveling through the Russian River Valley. On our way to the coast, we passed Russia House #1 and it caught my attention. It was an odd-looking structure which sat near the edge of the Russian River, with a sign advertising traditional Russian food. I filed it away in my head and, on the return trip, I asked Curt to pull over so that we could check it out.

When we pulled into the parking lot, there were no other cars, and when we entered the building, there were no other people. Just inside the entrance there was a room with an eclectic collection of puzzles and games. Further in, there were several large tables laid out with at least a dozen large crock pots, plates, and silverware. After a few minutes wait a rumpled-looking fellow came out from the back and introduced himself as the neighbor from across the street. He was watching over things as the three women who sponsored this culinary experiment were away for the day. He explained that we help ourselves, buffet-style, eat as much or as little as we want, and pay what we think makes sense. Hmmmm. What was the catch? I was both surprised, and a little suspicious, but when I read one of the postcards on our table, I started to understand what this was about.

Russian house#1 is a free cultural space, intentional community and an experiment in new economics. Russian House #1 is a unique Restaurant, where the food is being served like at Home. It means that we do not have menus, nor fixed prices. Our food is being prepared with an inspiration every day, considering our favorite Russian recipes and healthy local produce. We do culinary classes and we love to take best cooking practices from our guests. (Yes! You are welcome to cook with us or to cook for us ))) We have a great puzzle collection, intellectual clubs, meditations and breath work workshops .”

Everything smelled and tasted delicious, and some the food was familiar due to commonalities between Russian cuisine and Slovak dishes which my Baba would make. It was homemade Russian peasant food: hearty soups, stews, blini and salads were presented on a buffet table. Tea, fruit drinks and water were also available. The view of the Russian River Valley was lovely. Yes, I went back for seconds. I was grateful that my travel companions were willing to take a chance and explore this very special place together, and they all seemed to enjoy the food as well. I think I left $100 to cover the four of us.

Researching for this Substack, I learned that Russia House #1 closed in January of 2022, when the landlord declined to renew their lease. I’m betting that the inspired Russian women behind this culinary/intellectual/spiritual/diplomatic experiment will re-emerge in another location to continue their adventure. If you’re interested in more details, Russia House #1 was covered in these 2021 Washington Post, 2022 San Francisco Chronicle, and 2022 The Press Democrat articles.

PRESENT

Besides my Russian love Julia, and the yummy food of Russia House #1, I was inspired to write this Substack by my observations regarding a drug called Sulodexide. The only way I know of to procure this drug is via what I’ll call the “grey market,” as it is not available in the U.S. On websites which change from week to week, using similar graphics but different names for their business, people with names like Igor, Boris, Alexsandr and Dimitri bridge the gap between individual medical needs and the stupid greed of our Pharma-compromised FDA. I mention this at the start, because, as you will see, Sulodexide is not for the faint of heart, pardon the pun, as you will see.

What is reassuring about Sulodexide is that is has been approved by the European drug agencies and has been in use since 1972. When a drug has a long history of use, there has been plenty of opportunity to explore it’s pluses and minuses. Sulodexide is available as a generic medication, which makes it cheaper than comparable drugs such as Eliquis, an anticoagulant which is a factor Xa inhibitor. Eliquis has a good safety profile, and in our use of it to treat micro clotting-for more than 500 of our patients , there have been very few complications. However there is evidence that Sulodexide is safer than Eliquis. I would argue that it being cheaper and safer than Eliquis makes it very unlikely that we will see Sulodexide approved by the FDA anytime soon, as it would threaten the Pharma profits from Eliquis, Xarelto, and similar patented drugs.

Why am I talking about Sulodexide? First, the sheer scope of sulodexide’s clinical effects: it has anti-atherosclerotic, anti-coagulative, anti-fibrotic, fibrinolytic, anti-inflammatory, and endothelium-protecting properties. Second, I have seen noteworthy improvements in the symptoms of two vaccine injured patients who used a one month treatment of Sulodexide with 250LU (25mg) twice daily. I diagnosed the first patient with iliac venous compression (IVC). She took Sulodexide for one month before she had stenting with my colleague Dr Brooke Spencer in Denver, CO. She was noting improvement even before the moderate sedation was wearing off, and, among my growing list of IVC patients, has experienced one of the most rapid and dramatic improvements in her vascular system, chronic back pain, energy, and cognition. The second patient took Sulodexide for one month, and while he didn’t notice any tremendous benefit while taking it, his long-term recovery has been exemplary, as he has steadily improved in his reports re: ease of breathing, absence of chest pain, increased exercise capacity, and overall well-being.

From a 2014 review of Sulodexide:

Sulodexide (SDX), a sulfated polysaccharide complex extracted from porcine intestinal mucosa, is a blend of two glycosaminoglycan (GAG) entities, namely a fast-moving heparin (HP) fraction and a dermatan sulfate (DS; 20%) component. The compound is unique among HP-like substances in that it is biologically active by both the parenteral and oral routes. A main feature of the agent is to undergo extensive absorption by the vascular endothelium. For this reason, in preclinical studies, SDX administered parenterally displays an antithrombotic action similar to that of HPs but associated with fewer alterations of the blood clotting mechanisms and tests, thus being much less conducive to bleeding risk than HPs. When given orally, SDX is associated with minimal changes in classic coagulation tests, but maintains a number of important effects on the structure and function of endothelial cells (EC), and the intercellular matrix. These activities include prevention or restoration of the integrity and permeability of EC, counteraction versus chemical, toxic or metabolic EC injury, regulation of EC–blood cell interactions, inhibition of microvascular inflammatory and proliferative changes, and other similar effects, thus allowing oral SDX to be considered as an endothelial-protecting agent.

So, Sulodexide has two components, or fractions. The low molecular weight of both sulodexide fractions allows for extensive oral absorption compared to unfractionated heparin. The pharmacological effects of sulodexide differ substantially from other GAG drugs and are mainly characterized by a prolonged half-life and reduced effect on global coagulation and bleeding parameters. Translation: with Sulodexide there is less risk of bleeding.

We understand from our study and treatment of patients with post-acute sequelae of COVID and injury from the COVID shots, that endothelial (cells lining the blood vessels) injury occurred when the spike protein entered the blood and circulated. This happened to an exponentially greater extent from the shots, but can also occur in people who have had COVID, or who are experiencing shedding from exposure to vaccinated and boosted individuals. Therapeutics such as Sulodexide, which can counteract this endothelial injury, could be very valuable.

Sulodexide has been studied extensively in relation to venous ulcers, chronic venous disease, and diabetic neuropathy. There was one study of Sulodexide use in PASC patients with chest pain, which had positive statistical and clinical significance. One application which intrigues me, and which I will be exploring with patients, is its potential use in treating tinnitus, because that has been one of the hardest nuts to crack in PASC and vaccine injury. Sulodexide studies showed that when used in conjunction with melatonin, or as monotherapy, it was a viable treatment option for patients suffering from central or sensorineural tinnitus.

I expect that this brief exposition on Sulodexide will raise more questions among readers. Please remember that this is not individual health care advice for you. If Sulodexide sounds promising to you, please do more research on your own, as there are many academic articles to be found, and discuss it with your healthcare provider. I suggest starting with PubMed, the free online search engine available through the NIH. As with purchasing other medicine, such as IVM, from outside the United States, there are inherent risks which the regulatory structure of FDA approval is meant to protect us from (but which can also impede our access to safe, repurposed drugs). Personally, I obtained Sulodexide from abroad for a cost of ~$180 for a one month supply, and when I shared images of the package, medication blister packs and package insert with a Russian-reading pharmacist, he validated that I had the genuine article. Buyer beware, as I can’t speak for the ethics and quality control of the person on the other end of such transactions, and you would be purchasing the drug at your own risk.

P.S. Dr Pierre Kory and I are co-owners of The Leading Edge Clinic, a telemedicine practice. We work with a mission-focused staff of fifteen, including two extraordinary FNPs, India Scott and Laura Bevis. India and Laura also offer care in general medicine, and Laura specializes in geriatrics. We continue to study and learn in our treatment of PASC and vaccine injury. As one of five clinical sites participating in the five year FLCCC study using repurposed therapeutics as adjunctive treatment of cancer, Pierre and I are developing our expertise in this new realm. We will be joined full-time by another physician in August of 2024, who will focusing on cancer and which will significantly expand our capacity to help cancer patients. You can to go to our website at drpierrkory.com and initiate an application to become a patient in our practice.

DISTANT PAST

My family moved from Horsham, PA to West Hartford, CT in 1973. For the next six years, we would make trips back to Pennsylvania for holidays such as Easter, occasionally Christmas, but always Thanksgiving. The Marsland clan holiday was Thanksgiving, and was spent in Parkerford with my Nana and Pop pop.

During the decade that my wife and I lived in Philadelphia, we made the trip to CT and back many times. The experience of a five and a half hour drive as an adult is soooooo different than that of a child. You have a steering wheel in your hands, your foot on the gas and brake pedals, and must pay attention. Driving is the most complex behavior which many of us engage in on a regular basis, judging distance and speed, calculating risk, and exercising situational awareness.

As a child in the backseat, five and a half hours was a prolonged period of boredom, counterbalanced by the adrenaline-filled anticipation of seeing my grandparents. My little sister Sharon would be seated in her car seat between me and my older brother John. Our occasional squabbles were limited by my mother’s sharp fingernails. There weren’t the tools of distraction which contemporary parents use, such as CD players extending from the ceiling or mounted on a headrest. The Sony Walkman hadn’t been invented yet. Thankfully, I was a reader, and could spend some time engrossed in a book. Still in elementary school, I made my way through The Kent Family Chronicles, which were adult novels of adventure and romance by American writer John Jakes.

I didn’t recognize landmarks, but my body knew when we were getting close to Parkerford because of the change in texture and pattern of the roads. There was a series of stop lights as we drove through Phoenixville and and past Spring City; some railroad tracks we would cross over, and then the left turn at the light off of Rt 724 onto Old Schuykill Rd. I knew that intersection, and felt the slower speed of the car for the next few minutes. My excitement grew until we turned left onto Zeiber Rd, reached the crest of the hill, and turned right into Nana and Pop pop’s gravel driveway.

Nana must have heard the crunch of tires on gravel, and would be at the door to greet us with a big wet kiss. She smelled like Dove soap. As I entered the tight space between the kitchen door and the basement door, I could smell a combination of cooking smells, with lingering elements of natural gas from the stove pilot light, cigar, and old wood. I swear that I could smell the Froot Loops among the little cereal boxes she would keep in the oven for our visits. (Why keep cereal in the oven, I will never know!) There was gentler, warmer lighting of incandescent bulbs, long before LEDs became pervasive. We would bring in our suitcases, and I would take a minute to bounce on the twin bed on my side of the room which I would share with my brother, listening for the reassuring squeak of the old box springs.

Pop pop would still be at the service station he ran in Norristown. I loved my Nana, but I adored my Pop pop. His return home was my highlight of our visits. He would be wearing his dark blue Dickie’s work shirt and pants with his black workshoes. He smelled like cigar and sweat with hints of gasoline and oil. He had a big smile of crooked tea-stained teeth, a rich laugh, and baritone timbre to his voice.

Before we could get down to playing a card game of Hearts or Oh Hell, or dominoes if it was later, Pop pop had to tally up the day’s receipts. He had an old Phillies cigar box, and I could smell the cash as he counted bills, doing long addition with a pencil and piece of paper. It was all so tangible and immediate.

As I drifted off to sleep, I could hear the tinkle of the old radiators, and in the middle of the night, my Pop pop’s snoring from the adjacent bedroom. Because of his work, he was an early riser both during his working years and in retirement. We kept our bedroom doors open, and even if I wasn’t ready to get out of bed yet, I could hear Pop pop’s footsteps on the hardwood floors as he passed our bedroom. I could smell the whiff of cigar smoke as he lit up before going outside for a walk. I didn’t need to ask “Are we there yet?” I was home.

RECENT PAST

In the Fall of 1989 I was attending Denmark’s International Study program (DIS) in Copenhagen, Denmark. I was a Business Economics major back at Susquehanna University, a small liberal arts college in Central Pennsylvania, and was enrolled to study international business at DIS for my entire junior year. When Winter break came, I flew to Madrid, Spain to meet up with my friend Kelly Hayner, a former Susquehanna graduate who was now teaching English. It was a great visit, with late-night dancing, standing meals at tapas bars, and several day excursions. We paid a visit to Museo Reina Sofía, where Picasso’s Guernica and all of the steps leading up to its creation are displayed. We also traveled to Segovia to see the Roman aqueduct and its Gothic cathedral.

At the end of our visit, I boarded a plane in Madrid, with plans to land in Paris. When I was a teenager, I was an informal exchange student with la famille Tardiveau near Nantes, and intended to visit them again. The weather goddess had other plans, and, less than an hour after takeoff, our plane was diverted back to Madrid, where we were placed on a train instead. It was chaotic; babies were crying, kids were whining, and tempers were short.

There are more pigs than people in Denmark, and few people outside of Denmark would bother learning Danish, because most Danes speak excellent English, and German, and French. I noted that when Danes are traveling abroad, they are comfortable expressing themselves without restraint in their mother tongue, as they can rightly expect that no one else will know what the hell they are saying. I enjoy languages, and as usual was motivated by romance and lust, so took up studying Danish during my first semester at DIS.

Back to the train. I knew that the passengers were getting to the end of their patience, when I heard a deep man’s voice yell “Hold kæft!”, which is a crude way of saying shut up in Danish, in response to another passenger’s crying baby. Thankfully, the train arrived at the Gare Montparnasse within the hour. Unfortunately, it was now past midnight, and no trains were running again until 6:30am.

Being a college student with limited funds, I figured that I would just find a corner and doze against my backpack until later that morning. Two members of the Police Nationale and a nasty German Shepherd had other ideas, and sent me packing. They did give me space to stow my backpack in a locker, but a few minutes later I was standing outside the station getting the once-over by several prostitutes. I proceeded to walk across the street to enter an open cafe, thinking that I would hang out there for a while. I ordered an omelet with jus d’orange and half a baguette. I was about to order coffee when the waiter let me know they were closing. It was only 1:30am! I paid my bill and walked outside. It must have been a slow night, because the same prostitutes were giving me looks of reconsideration.

I flagged a taxi, and in my adequate French explained that I was looking for a restaurant that was open all night. He obliged me, and dropped me off on a street corner which had an open restaurant on each side. I walked up to the door which was closest to me, and as soon as I entered, felt out of place. Everyone looked like they had just come from the opera, wearing tuxedos and full-length dresses. I was wearing a red Marmot shell over a flannel shirt with blue jeans and hiking boots. The maître d’, without hesitation escorted me to a two-top with a fine linen tablecloth. The equally professional waiter arrived but a moment later to deliver a menu.

Everything on the menu looked good—and expensive! I picked the least expensive item I could find, which was a broiled white fish, which came with cream sauce, blanched asparagus, and a delectable whipped potato creation. I drank from une carafe d’eau, not daring to get into the wine list. I ate v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, but still, when I finished, it was only 3:00am. I paid my bill, walked out of the restaurant, and across the street to the other restaurant!

I’m not sure how to describe this third restaurant. It was brightly lit, and bustling with customers. The menu was eclectic, and I was not starving for sure, so I decided on a chef salad. When the salad arrived, it was huge! There were FOUR hard-boiled eggs, sliced in half, a generous amount of sliced ham and cheese, tomatoes, different types of lettuce, red onions, olives, and a lovely vinaigrette. I dug in, and even had some buttered baguette on the side. When I finished, it was…4:30 am.

I left the restaurant, thinking that I would get a cab, but when I counted up my remaining Francs, I realized that I had just enough money left to buy a train ticket. Well, then I could use the Metro. Wrong. The Metro stops were shuttered by iron gates. I didn’t have a map, but had been here three years before, and using the maps in the bus shelters I began to make my way back across the city to Gare Montparnasse. It was surreal. There was hardly anyone out and about, just a rare taxi and no other pedestrians. I walked by the Obelisk on Place de la Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries, the Louvre and its pyramid, all dramatic light and shadow in their spotlights. At first I was scared, but then just accepted my fate and enjoyed myself.

I arrived back at the Gare Montparnasse around 5:30 am, and it was starting to come to life. I got in line to buy a ticket to Nantes on a train leaving at 6:30am. In my well-structured but poorly pronounced French, I told the ticket counter clerk, “Je voudrais un billet pour le prochain train pour Nantes.” I.e. I would like a ticket for the next train to Nantes. The price of the ticket was unexpectedly low. I puzzled over this as I walked away, and as the minutes ticked by I came to understand my mistake. The clerk had heard my prochain (next) as chien (dog), and issued me a ticket for a dog!

It was now 6:00 am, and the ticket line was long. When I reached the clerk, again, I summoned up some indignity. (If you’ve ever heard an indignant Frenchman saying “Incroyable!”, you’ll understand). With pained emphasis and pronunciation, I said, “Je suis pas un chien (I’m not a dog), je suis un humain, et je voudrais, un billet, pour le prochain train pour Nantes!” Ah, this time he understood: with a quick grimace, he accepted my old ticket and issued a new one.

I got to the train about five minutes before departure. It had been more than twenty four hours, one train ride, two Police Nationales and one German Shepherd, two prostitutes, one taxi drive, three restaurants, three excellent meals, one very long and lovely walk, and one train station clerk, but I was finally on my train. I was already dreaming of the cozy bed awaiting me chez Tardiveau.

PRESENT

Several times this week during patient visits, I fielded some form of the question: “When can I stop taking ______ prescription medication?” I usually respond with a question to try and gauge the patient’s willingness to continue—indefinitely. “What are your concerns about continuing with ______ medication?

Given that we are talking about post-acute sequelae of COVID (PASC) and vaccine injury, the relevant medications are most often IVM, LDN, Ketotifen, Eliquis, Plavix and Aspirin. But patients are also weary of taking fistfuls of supplements, and will ask about NAC Augmentata, Nattokinase, Lumbrokinase, etc.

When the patient’s primary concern is cost, I try to help them discern what the priorities of treatment are in each case, keeping in mind that there can be significant differences between patients. That is why I like the low-cost or free interventions such as intermittent fasting, extended fasting, grounding, prayer, meditation, cold-water showers, Baobab, Lithium, and alkaline water.

More often, patients just don’t want to keep taking a prescription drug. In part, it’s a self-image issue. Most patients with PASC and vaccine injury were high-performers in their lives before COVID. Their self-perception didn’t include having a pill organizer the size of a laptop with color-coding, nor did they expect that their Saturday night routine would include filling said pill organizer. Bless her soul, my wife got me some super-thoughtful Christmas presents last year, and not that a pill organizer wasn’t thoughtful, but damn, that wasn’t on my wish list for Santa.

I don’t have a crystal ball and, certainly, the front-row seat I have had to this genocide in progress has colored my perspective. Yup, I used the g-word, and mean every syllable of it. I expect patients (and you, dear reader) to take what I say with a boulder of Pink Himalayan sea salt. Yet I have a perspective that I think is worth sharing, otherwise I wouldn’t be spending some of my few free hours writing this.

Spikopathy is instigating a list of pathologies longer than…Fauci-Pinocchio’s nose during a recent congressional hearing. The world is contaminated with spike. Our bodies are contaminated with spike. I don’t know when or if that will ever end. Spike is provoking microclots, in all of us. Microclots provide refuge and mobility to metastatic cancer cells. Turbo cancer is a real thing, and in case nobody close to you has been diagnosed with cancer in the last two minutes, I’ll say that it arrives in the middle of the night and doesn’t wait to kiss you goodbye in the morning.

IVM blocks the influence of spike on platelets and red blood cells (RBCs), so that they are less inclined to aggregate and activate into microclots. LDN decreases the cytokine IL-6, a provocateur of mast cell activation, clotting, and cancer. Ketotifen stabilizes the mast cells which can be connected to every symptom a person has, from head to toe and everything in between. Because mast cells survive two to four years in our body, attending to their misbehaving ways is a priority. Eliquis, Plavix, Aspirin, Nattokinase, and Lumbrokinase are all helping our bodies cope with the burden of microclotting. NAC Augmentata breaks the disulfide bond between spike and ACE2 receptors, smashing spike into nearly 100 fragments so that our liver can break it down further and we can pee it out of our bodies. Every one of these therapies is doing something very important.

The comparative mind is a source of tremendous human suffering. “I look around and see everybody else living their lives, doing what they please, and they aren’t taking these drugs or supplements, they aren’t fasting, they’re not paying to speak with you every month. So, I ask again, how long do I have to take these drugs?”

Well, I can be blunt. First, there weren’t any classes in school about how you heal people from an intentional bioweapon. This is an on-the-job living classroom situation and we’re learning as we go. Second, third and fourth: how long do you want to live? How well do you want to live? How much of your mind do you want to keep? If your answers are, a long time, as well as possible, and all of it, then I would advise you, don’t stop taking those pills and potions.

Over the last thirty years, it has been my tremendous honor to be present as countless fellow humans grappled with their mortality, and often, while they passed over to the other side. For every person whose chronic illness has engendered bitterness in their soul, there is another who has made lemonade out of lemons, asked themselves what lessons they are meant to be learning, and made significant changes to how they live, in order to keep living. Sometimes these are people who are near death, but they are extracting meaning from their journey. By the calculus of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel: pain without meaning equals suffering.

Many of you had your eyes and ears open long before the lies and coercion to be vaccinated came tumbling down from on high. I was slower to pick up the plot, but I’ve been busy catching up. The last people I would be watching for clues about what to do next are the people who are doing nothing. I mean the people who are living their lives without a care, because they didn’t get a bad batch shot, and, by golly, those boosters were no trouble either! The time for wishful thinking is long gone. Never before in the history of humanity has our capacity to look squarely at reality been so important to our survival.

P.S. My colleague Dr Mobeen Syed or Dr Been has returned his focus to his medical education company, and recently completed a course on pain titled DEA Requirement for Opioid Use Disorder Management. For the medical professionals who read Lightning Bug: if you have suffered through tedious lectures which reinforce the pharma-influenced narrative in order to meet your obligatory CMEs, Dr Been’s lectures are a joy to behold. He is a brilliant and talented teacher, and you will learn concepts of anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, and practical treatment which will make your daily practice more interesting, and more effective. The cost is also very reasonable. For both practitioners and laypeople alike, I highly recommend the second lecture in this series, in order to understand the dynamics behind the chronic muscle pain which so many of us experience as a result of the spike protein.

P.S.S. I have no financial interest in Dr Been’s company.

The title of this Substack is inspired by one of my favorite movies, a quirky animated film called Waking Life, written and directed by Richard Linklater and starring Wiley Wiggins (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243017/). Waking Life follows the dream(s) of one man and his attempt to find and discern the absolute difference between waking life and the dreamworld. I think the funniest part of the movie is what I refer to as the ‘burrito doings’ scene:

(Main character, Wiley Wiggins, goes into the convenience store. The clerk, Bill Wise, is the same guy who drove the boat car)

BW: “What’s the word, turd?”

WW: “Hey, do you also drive a, a, boat car?”

“A what?”

“Like, you gave me a ride in a car that was also a boat.”

“No, man, I don’t have a ‘boat car’. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Man, this must be, like, parallel universe night. You know that cat that was just in here, who just ran out the door? Well, he comes up to the counter, you know, and I say, ‘What’s the word, turd?’ and he lays down this burrito and he kind of looks at me, kind of stares at me, and then he says, ‘I have but recently returned from the valley of the shadow of death. I am rapturously breathing in all the odors and essences of life. I’ve been to the brink of total oblivion. I remember and ferment a desire to remember everything.’”

“So, what’d you say to that?”

“Well, I mean, what could I say? I said ‘If you’re going to microwave that burrito, I want you to poke holes in the plastic wrapping because they explode, and I’m tired of cleaning up your little burrito doings. You dig me? ‘Cause the jalapenos dry up. They’re like little wheels.’”

DREAMWORLD VS. WAKING LIFE

Living in Ithaca during the pandemic and post-Covidian times has been a bit of a mind-twister. I spend 8-10 hours a day in my office, working hard to help people recover from the life-changing adverse effects of the Covid virus and the Covid vaccines. In my physical office, I share the space with a colleague who sees what I see. I work with the talented and growing team of the Leading Edge Clinic, now twenty of us including schedulers, an RT, RNs, NPs and physicians, and we all are dealing with the same reality every day. I return to my home and my wife is is injured by the Covid shots (hers Moderna), just like me (mine Pfizer). Yet we are surrounded by a city filled with people who continue to believe in the narrative that the shots are safe and effective, and in fact many continue to get boosters. This is despite the growing list of ailments which they are encountering, and for which their physicians have no answers or effective treatments. The bumper sticker “Ithaca, 10 sq miles Surrounded By Reality” takes on a sinister twist. On a midday walk, a public transit bus passes me with a fresh advertisement on its side promising “Safe and Effective Against COVID, Get Your Booster Today!” As far as I’m concerned, the bus might as well have an ad for Ithaca Gun Co., and we can just move forward as if we are all in a Steven King novel. Everyday life outside my home and office can start to feel like a dreamworld, some sort of Twilight Zone wrought large in Central New York.

MORNING INTO AFTERNOON

I push in the clutch, turn the key, shift into reverse and back out of the driveway. Squeeeeeeaaaaak! The lady who had my Volvo C30 before me put racing brakes on it, and they are quite noisy when they are cold. I wave to Kerrie and step on the gas, doing 30mph up the hill until, just a couple of minutes later, I take my routine right turn. I pull my little white car into the far right parking place next to the black and silver cars of the Dolson-Fazio clan. The monochrome color combo strikes me every day. I pop the hatchback and grab the Juvent, and trundle down the drive to awkwardly open the front door. I set down the Juvent, plug it in, shed my shoes and slip into my slides (a la Mr Rogers), and head to the office to turn on the computer. Green tea poured, check. Phone plugged in and charging, check. Glasses cleaned and on, check. VPN whirling, thinking, whirling, and…connected, check. Sign in, write good morning to my nurse, Kara, bring up the chart, begin the video, and ACTION!

It’s back-to-back patients, along with managing messages, but by 12:20pm I’m dashing out the door for a midday walk. This is a new, welcome and very important addition to my daily routine. It is inspired by Dr Paul Marik’s guidance in his book and evolving document Cancer Care: The Role of Repurposed Drugs and Metabolic Interventions in Treating Cancer. “Patients should be encouraged to engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity at least five days of the week. Walking, particularly in the sunshine, has enormous physical, emotional and psychological benefits.” It has been a month since I started these afternoon walks, and it’s hard to fathom how I got along without them. As I am starting my day and securing a positive focus, the walks are something to which I can look forward. I notice the breeze, the sun, the trees, the birds. There is time to settle my mind, work through questions and clinical puzzles that my patient visits have produced – and walk off some of the burdensome emotions that can come with this work.

Sometime between 5pm and 7pm I wrap up my day. I pick up the Juvent and bring it back to the car, and it’s a quick drive back down the hill, and home. Kerrie makes dinner most weeknights, and I have kitchen duty on the weekends. Although we often eat at 7pm, we continuously aspire to eat earlier, and are careful to leave three to four hours between when we finish eating, and when we go to bed. This is very important for brain health. Sleep is the only time our brain has to clean and restore itself through glymphatic drainage. If we eat less than three hours before bedtime, we prevent this internal housekeeping, and will accumulate debris such as amyloid proteins in our brain. Cognitive function will inevitably decline as a result.

Over the course of multiple videos, Dr Been has gone into terrific detail re: how the glymphatic system and lifestyle changes which we can make to improve our brain health with a deeper understanding of glymphatic drainage. In glymphatic drainage, the cerebrospinal fluid flows into the para-vascular space around cerebral arteries, combining with interstitial fluid and parenchymal solutes, and exiting down venous para-vascular spaces. In plain terms, the brain has a mechanism of special blood vessels which maintain the blood brain barrier while also permitting waste be moved out of the brain. A good starting point to learn more about this is Course 49 of Long Story Short, part of a series Dr Been made on the FLCCC Alliance platform.

Recently, my wife and I have taken this understanding to another level, and fast between Friday morning breakfast and Saturday afternoon brunch. I have our patient Rodney to thank for this behavior. During a long-haul and vaccine injury support group which I led, Rodney remarked that hitting sleep time at least twelve hours into a fasting state exponentially increases the glymphatic drainage and neuronal repair in our brain. Another patient demonstrated the power of this practice when he decided to eat one morning meal each day for two months, and we saw his energy, focus, cognitive abilities, quality and length of sleep improve; and his lab measurement of Beta Amyloid 42/40 returned to normal levels.

EVENING

Most nights, weather permitting, we drive down to Cayuga Lake for a walk. The city of Ithaca is situated at the base of Cayuga Lake, which is one of the Finger Lakes in Central New York.  Just before the pandemic, New York State completed a mixed pavement and gravel trail around the perimeter of Treman Marina. Kerrie and I have been walking this trail for the last four years, a routine we developed during the early days of the pandemic, especially with lockdown. I think of these walks as essential to processing our experience of the pandemic – and to stay steady.  The avian life there is bustling, and the cycle of seasons and migration provided some reassurance of normality and continuity among so much chaos and uncertainty. In the Springtime the Osprey arrive at any number of nesting platforms to roost and raise their young. At this precise moment, the activity in the nest has ticked up because the fledglings are learning to fly and fish. It is heartwarming to watch their early efforts, as they circle the nests and call out to each other with what one can easily interpret to be excitement and encouragement. 

I don’t think one can overstate the case for spending time outside as a path to healing. Yes, the vapor trails which appear in the sky overhead can be distracting and discouraging. But, experiencing the sensations of breezes, the scents of vegetation and water coming off the lake, seeing the distant views which are never the same, the clouds which are always configured differently with an ever-changing colors — we need this for our spirit.

The rhythm of walking with its alternating left-right cadence helps our minds integrate our experiences by reconnecting our left and right brain.  This dynamic process is the foundation of EMDR, a form of therapy, which has a strong evidence base and has been used extensively by the Veterans Administration to treat patients who suffer from PTSD and TBI.  Human beings are bipedal creatures who were designed to walk.  It is our inheritance and an essential tool for promoting optimal health.

When we get home, Kerrie calls shotgun on the Juvent, and I go second.  We each spend 20 minutes standing.  As soon as one of us steps onto the Juvent, our young black cat Charlotte leaps onto the arm of the sofa next to it for her nightly pets from both of us. Kerrie will usually look at her iPad while on the Juvent and I will usually read a book.  I have even been known to do some ironing at the same time. In this way, and for these reasons, the time feels productive.

We have both been using the Juvent for more than three months at this point. There is a short list of specific benefits which I can identify so far. The Covid shots put me into heart failure, and the lower extremity swelling I have as a result has been reduced since using the Juvent. The myalgia and fatigue in my lower extremities is also significantly reduced or absent. My increased capacity to walk at a rapid pace up hills during my midday strolls is noteworthy.

Besides those benefits, which I can credit in part to long-term use of the Juvent, there are the improvements which I have seen in patients who have purchased and use the device. The spouse of one patient who was previously diagnosed with osteopenia used it only intermittently for two months and when she had her annual bone scan was told that at the age of 70, she now has bones comparable to those of a 40 year old woman. Another patient who has suffered from low red blood cell, platelets and white blood cell count for decades, has levels which normalized for the first time in 20 years. This makes a lot of sense to me given that the kinetic energy of the Juvent is stimulating the bone marrow of our long bones, tibia, fibula and femur.

The reason that the Juvent makes a daily commute with me to the office is that my colleague and his wife use it. She has MS and has found that with relatively brief, that is, 5 to 6 minute intervals of use, she has had improvement in balance.  He is a martial artist who has chronic knee pain from years of matches, and has found that by using the device with his knees slightly bent (similar to the stance taught in Tai Chi), he has seen an improvement in his knee pain from a 6 out of 10 to a 3-4 out of 10 over a period of about two months. 

On most Saturday mornings, I spend up to one hour in our Sauna Space NIR sauna.  In the winter time Malcolm, our big older black cat will stick with me the entire hour. During the summer, he is in and out, pacing himself. My goal with this routine is to reach an internal temperature of 100°F, or as close as I can get in one hour’s time. I’m trying to stimulate heat shock proteins in order to more efficiently break down toxins, deformed proteins, pathogens and spike in my body. If I can get to 100F sooner than one hour, I stop. I use an oral digital thermometer to measure my progress. The shortest time it has ever taken me is 25 minutes. I have both Dr. Mercola and Dr. Been to thank for inspiring this practice. 

My understanding is that there are three types of autophagy. Micro autophagy is happening all the time because, for example, our body is making and breaking down red blood cells to the tune of five million a second. Macro autophagy is what occurs when we get to the 14th to 16th hour of intermittent fasting. Chaperone-guided autophagy with heat shock proteins is what we can stimulate when we get our internal temperature up to 100° F.

In terms of cellular repair and cleanup, I think of these three pathways as a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and a backhoe. Heat shock proteins are the backhoe. My understanding is that Dr. Mercola tries to accomplish this on a daily basis and because of how he has conditioned his body, he is able to get his temperature up within 10 minutes. I would caution readers who try this to limit their initial efforts because it takes time for our bodies to get acclimated to such an exercise and I would never go beyond an hour.

There are a few tricks which I have learned help get me to 100° F faster. The first is to make sure that when I get out of bed, I am dressed for the ambient temperature and not developing a chill. In the winter time this means making sure that I put on pajamas and socks, and wear slippers and a bathrobe.  I have also learned that drinking cool or cold water inhibits my efforts and so try to add hot water from the teapot to make my morning water, warm – or hot, but drinkable. The sauna came with a bristle brush, and I use it to dry brush from my neck to my toes before I get into the sauna. I think that Japanese readers who are fastidious about their skin care and use soaking baths will note this as a familiar pre-bath ritual.  It helps clear older skin cells and free pores to release perspiration more easily.

A common question is whether one can use a Finnish sauna to promote heat-shock proteins. The short answer is yes, but a NIR sauna facilitates reaching a higher internal temperature sooner with a lower ambient temperature, and less stress on the body. I’ve always enjoyed saunas, but never spent more than fifteen minutes in one before I need to exit for a dip in some cold water.

Immediately after a long sauna, and occasionally also before, I will drink 16oz of water with a sachet of an electrolyte replacement. The product I prefer is Quintessential 3.3 by Quicksilver Scientific, developed by the French military as an oral plasma replacement during campaigns in the desert environment of colonies such as Algeria. It doesn’t have sugar or flavorings, and it produced from micro-filtered seawater obtained from ocean depths.

Finally, I head to the shower where I perform a second wet brushing of my skin from neck to toes. My understanding is that this helps clear off toxins and pathogens which were transported out of my body via perspiration, but which may still linger on my skin’s surface. And so I am ready for my day, theoretically with less spike – and definitely with more hope.

P.S. I have no financial interest in the products which I write about in my Substack.

For nearly six months, Pierre and I have been seeing patients for adjunctive cancer care. In one week, as of 8/12/24, our adjunctive cancer care will be augmented Dr Sid Lawler, an internist with more than twenty years of clinical practice. The Leading Edge Clinic is one of five practices nationally participating in a five-year observational study sponsored by the FLCCC Alliance, evaluating the clinical benefit of a ketogenic (keto) diet, repurposed supplements and prescription medications in treating cancer. This intervention, an integration of a keto diet with layered therapy, is based upon the groundbreaking research of Dr Paul Marik and his protocol . Pierre is putting the finishing touches on a detailed four-part Substack series on this topic. In the meantime, I’m going to supply a focused update on what I’ve learned so far from our current patients.

DIET AND GLUCOSE MONITORING CHALLENGES

About fifty percent of my patients have had some kind of difficulty with the keto diet. For starters, we are using the Libre3 continuous glucometer sensor, which costs $80 and, unless a person is diabetic, insurance won’t cover it. The value of the monitor, especially in the first weeks and months of treatment is invaluable, because it gives patients real-time feedback about the glucose spikes which result from different dietary choices. Some patients can’t get over the fact that the sensor uses a small needle, and remains in place for two weeks. If they get really sweaty in the hot weather, it may not stay attached. Some older patients are technically challenged and not up to downloading the app to a phone which provides continuous reporting on their current glucose levels.

Our target goal is a glucose of 50-80 ng/dL, and that alone scares some patients and their family members. They have long been told that if their glucose gets below 70 ng/dL they should drink some juice or eat something, because a lower blood sugar is considered life-threatening. The truth is that as we move away from simple carbohydrates (carbs) and our bodies learn to happily use ketones for fuel, we can think and feel just fine with a glucose of 50 ng/dL.

There are the patients who are underweight when we have our first visit, because they have already started chemotherapy, radiation, and/or immunotherapy and are dealing with decreased appetite and nausea. Limiting them to keto options doesn’t necessarily make sense, so we are instead guiding them in harm reduction: e.g. avoiding processed foods, sugary beverages, and simple carbs. Simple changes such as the order of eating can help tremendously: i.e. eating leafy greens first, then proteins/fats, then starches, and then fruit.

There have also been family members who are on speed dial and ever-ready to take the patient out for White Castle or McDonalds, because “you deserve it.” In part, this reflects that the patient has come to us because of a different family member who is diligently researching and aches to save their loved one’s life, but if the patient her/himself isn’t as committed, there is only so much we can do.

VITAMIN K2

Dr Marik’s protocol advises the use of a Vitamin D3 / K2 combination when high-dose Vitamin D3 is being used. I have previously written about my clinical observations re: compounding factors which promote and perpetuate microclotting in our post-acute sequelae of COVID (PASC) and COVD vaccine-injured patients. Vitamin K2 is one of those factors. In one of my first followup visits with a patient who is a retired nurse, I didn’t get my first sentence out before she said “I’m not taking any more of that Vitamin K2 you ordered. My infusaport has been working fine for a year, and as soon as I started taking the Vitamin K2, it clogged up from clotting. No more!” I didn’t object, and we discussed the other factors to consider when taking high-dose Vitamin D3 which help manage calcium levels: 30 minutes of weight-bearing exercise (e.g. walking) daily, 250-500mg of Magnesium daily, and limiting, or stopping, the intake of dairy products due to their contribution of excessive free Calcium.

One challenge here is that some patients are too weak or fatigued to walk thirty minutes a day. If someone has $6,000 to purchase a Juvent, I think that 20 minutes a day on the Juvent is a fair approximation, but this is beyond the budget for most. When D3 and K2 are in the same supplement, one can quickly arrive at a daily intake of more than 1000mcg of K2, and these are levels at which I have observed PASC and vaccine-injured patients get stuck with stage/grade 4 of 4 microclotting. I’ve communicated my concerns to Dr Marik, and there is some agreement that separating Vitamin K2 from Vitamin D3 intake is reasonable. In this way, a patient can plan for 100mcg of K2 daily, or 800mcg weekly.

RESEARCHING FAMILY MEMBERS

Pierre and I both have encountered many patients and family members who are diligently researching cancer treatments, and bombarding us with messages that reference articles and studies which promise good clinical results from any number of supplements and prescription therapies. There are 256 repurposed drugs and over 2000 nutraceuticals that reportedly have anti-cancer mechanisms.  One cannot treat a disease using over 2000 medicines. Very few of the long list has reliable, or extensive, clinical or in vitro evidence. (In vitro is Latin for “in glass.” It describes medical procedures, tests, and experiments that researchers perform outside of a living organism. An in vitro study occurs in a controlled environment, such as a test tube or petri dish.) Our approach follows Dr. Marik’s protocol, which relies on those therapies which have the widest and deepest evidence base in both efficacy and known safety.  

While we try to be clear with patients and their family members about what we do and don’t provide in our adjunctive care, we still encounter a lot of pushback. E.g. patients encounter the X posts of physicians like Dr William Makis who make claims re: his ability to treat cancer with repurposed supplements and prescription medications. He states “We have proposed a ‘first in the world’ protocol!” It would seem he hasn’t heard of the FLCCC Alliance, or Dr Marik’s protocol which was published in…August of 2023. Dr Makis isn’t doing the right thing. The best example I can give you is that he promotes the use of Laetrile (Amygdalin), derived from the seeds of Apricots. On X he posted “Bioactive compounds are a crucial part of any “Alternative Cancer Treatment” strategy and Apricot fruit and seeds are a reasonable addition (nothing even remotely controversial about it).” https://x.com/MakisMD/status/1784557179975942564 He makes quick work of dismissing concerns that Laetrile is a cyanogenic glycoside—as in, it contains cyanide. If you read Dr Marik’s protocol, you’ll find Laetrile listed at position #45 under Recommended Against. In 2015, a Cochrane systematic review failed to identify any studies of Laetrile which met their inclusion criteria.

DISMISSIVE ONCOLOGISTS, OBEDIENT AND FEARFUL PATIENTS

Thanks to Dr Marik and forward thinkers/researchers/writers such as Thomas Seyfried, Otto Warburg, Jane McLelland, Travis Christofferson, Jeffry Dach, Nasha Winter and Jess Higgins, we now understand that a combination of keto diet and repurposed drugs can target cancer stem cells and increase both the safety the effectiveness of modern Oncology’s primary tools: chemo, radiation, surgery and immunotherapy. For patients who are working with an Oncologist who doesn’t dismiss adjunctive care, the length and number of treatments can be decreased, with fewer adverse effects. My experience so far is that at best, Oncologists tolerate patients’ used of repurposed therapies up until “the real treatment begins”, and then direct them to cease all adjunctive therapies. In his Forward to Dr Marik’s protocol, Dr Justus Hope writes that proactively adding repurposed drugs as early as possible can help prevent cancer stem cells from regrowing the tumor into a more resistant and sometimes indestructible form. Chemotherapy and radiation target about 10% of active cancer cells, but miss the other 90%, and do not address the stem cells which give rise to more cancer. It’s comparable to the way mowing the lawn actually makes the grass grow more. Most of the repurposed drugs which we are using in our adjunctive therapy target the cancer stem cells.

CROSSOVER OF CLINICAL EXPERIENCE

We’ve treated more than 6,000 patients for acute COVID, PASC, and COVID vaccine-injury since we opened our practice in February 2022. It turns out that the expertise we have developed during this time is invaluable to our delivery of adjunctive cancer care. The spike protein of COVID illness and vaccines has profoundly altered the inner universe of our bodies. We have good reason to believe that the spike protein is often at work behind the turbo cancers which are emerging. Understanding how to diagnose and treat the sequelae of spikopathy, including mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), microclotting, dysbiosis, neuropathic, cardiovascular and pulmonary pathologies, makes us more effective at treating cancer in the current contaminated environment, where spikopathy and its impact on the human body is rampant.

As we learned to use layered therapies to treat COVID, PASC and vaccine injury, we are also learning to use layered therapy as adjunctive therapy for cancer. Importantly, the clinical options are safe, gentle, often economical, and can be used together with current conventional approaches. In both cases, it has been necessary to challenge the pre-existing and economically supported assumptions, choosing instead to follow the revelations of existing, if rarely cited, science. We have a lot of work to do, and a long way to go, but I feel confident in the integrity of the practice we have built, and in the pathway that Dr Marik’s protocol has provided.

PAST

In the Fall of 1992, I was twenty-two years old, had just left my service with the Brethren Volunteer Service, and was living in a boarding house. I was still trying to pursue my dream of becoming a farmer, attempting to get a visa to live and work in France. Working as a cook at an Italian place, I made very little money, and got around Philadelphia either by foot or by bike. I was the third owner of my bike at the time, which was a small-framed Lotus twelve-speed. The Lotus had been a high-end Japanese bike in its day, and is still in my possession. One day, the chain and gears were gummed up with grease and grime, so I brought home (a single walkup bedroom with a hot plate and shared bathroom) some ALL NATURAL cleaner. It was called CitraSolv, concentrated cleaner and degreaser. It had a pleasant citrus smell. I mixed some with water in a quart plastic yogurt cup and proceeded to dip an old toothbrush in the solution and brush grease off the gears. The first thing I noticed was that I starting to get a headache. About ten minutes in, I went to make another dip in the cup with my brush, and noted that there was liquid around the cup, and that the cup was now half its size. What? The Citrasolv had melted the plastic in a neat line around the top of the solution.

It was an early lesson in the fact that all-natural is not the same as gentle, or non-toxic, or safe. We still keep a bottle of the stuff around the house for odd tasks, although I’d say it has been a very long time since I’ve used it. But I treat it with tremendous respect , work with it outside, and am careful to avoid sparks or open flames.

PRESENT

I count nearly a dozen Naturopathic Doctors (ND) among my patients and trusted colleagues. In email exchanges facilitated by Dr JP Saleeby, as well as in person at the February 2024 FLCCC Conference, I’ve had the pleasure of interactions with the ND, Dr Kristina Garman. Visits with NDs who are my patients are among the most stimulating and challenging, because they are generally very smart, very experienced, and philosophically opposed to most, if not all, pharmaceutical interventions which I would propose. They want to treat themselves and their own patients “naturally.” It is only after these approaches have failed to yield satisfactory results that they come to us. I lead with these statements, because I want to be clear that I respect, appreciate, and value their intelligence and clinical expertise.

The Leading Edge Clinic operates under the legal framework of the First Nation Medical Board (FNMB), and a foundational principle of the FNMB is that indigenous or native medicine is plant-based medicine. In a sense, it is “old-fashioned” medicine. The longer our practice is open, and the more we learn, the more often we are using plant-based medicines, and the larger the percentage of what we do resembles indigenous medicine. E.g. Bacopa, which is an Ayurvedic medicine, has played an important role in rebalancing neurotransmitters, supporting thyroid function, knocking spike off nicotinic receptors, and improving both musculoskeletal and neurologic function because of increased acetylcholine production. I like to tell patients that Ayurvedic medicine is a pleasure to use, because it has been field-tested for three thousand years, and is often adaptogenic, meaning it brings the body towards homeostasis, whether certain parameters are low or high.

Nevertheless, none of us was taught in medical school or practice how to treat the pathology resulting from a bioweapon made in a lab, and with the COVID virus and COVID shots, that is what we are dealing with. Most of the patients who find their way to the Leading Edge Clinic (LEC) have already tried many conventional – and natural – approaches. If I had a nickel for every patient whose functional medicine doctor, ND, chiropractor, or acupuncturist tested them and asserted that they have mold and heavy metal toxicity, well, I could buy a vintage Volvo C30 with less mileage and fewer dents than the one I drive. It may be that they have mold and heavy metal toxicity, but the treatments they have received didn’t resolve their symptoms, and so, after months or years of treatment, we might safely assume that there may be something else at play. Given worldwide environmental contamination with the spike protein and its innumerable resulting pathologies, the chances are pretty good that treating spikopathy will help the patient get better.

Two labs which we rely upon consistently in our practice at the Leading Edge Clinic test levels of spike antibody and microclotting. I have written several times about different variables which I think promote and perpetuate microclotting. However, a new variable has appeared on my radar: Zeolite.

There have been two distinct clinical groups which introduced me to Zeolite. The first was a group of pharmacology researchers in Puerto Rico who were proposing “natural” approaches to treating post-acute sequelae of COVID (PASC) and injury from the COVID shots. Under the category of chelation, they listed Alpha Lipoic Acid, Chlorella, and Zeolite.

The second clinical group is an online discussion group sponsored by ZeroSpike, the small non-profit startup which developed and manufactures NAC Augmentata. Clinicians in this clinical group practice in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada and the United States. One particularly knowledgeable Naturopathic Doctor is a regular and lengthy contributor, and on several occasions has shared his recommended brands of Zeolite and how he uses them to treat PASC, vaccine injury and other illnesses.

As a Family Nurse Practitioner who was educated in mainstream universities, and worked in hospitals for most of my career, the things which I know about nutrition, homeopathy, supplements, counseling, microcurrent therapy, etc. were often encountered along the way in life, but not in the classroom. My Grandpop used to called it the school of hard knocks. For this reason, I value the lively discussion about holistic or alternative approaches to healing, but I continue to interrogate those approaches from the perspective of my Western medical training.

Zeolite nearly got past my defenses. I had actually recommended it to a patient, because he was reading about chelation and was eager to try something to facilitate it. I shared the three suggested brands from the ND in the ZeroSpike group. Later that same day, I had finished with my charts and was digging a little on the internet when I came across a nugget of information. Zeolite had been used in military field dressings for a while, but was then discontinued. Hmmm. I thought that was interesting – and curious. I dug a little deeper. It turns out that the military used dressings with Zeolite, because the dressings rapidly promoted coagulation and staunched bleeding from wounds. They discontinued use of the Zeolite-infused dressings because of thermal injuries and promotion of micro emboli. Full stop! Before I left the office that night I messaged the patient and asked him to disregard my recommendation of Zeolite, saying that we would find something else to use.

That week I messaged the ND on the ZeroSpike chat, mentioning what I had learned about the military’s use of Zeolite dressings. I asked if he ever checked microclotting in his patients and, if he did, were there any concerns about Zeolite promoting clotting. Crickets. That wasn’t a good sign.

A month or two has since passed, and when patients invariably bring up the issues of mold and heavy metal toxicity, and their online reading about chelation, I suggest that they try a topical product called EZDtox, which is readily available online, not too expensive, and well tolerated. EDTA has been FDA approved for chelation of lead and other heavy metals for decades. I defer discussion of mold and focus on managing their mast cells. I steer them clear of Zeolite.

Not too long ago I had a visit with a patient whose microclotting had just been rechecked, and despite six months of Rx and enzymatic anticoagulation therapy, it remained a 4 out of 4. Something was amiss. We went through her medication list, and then her supplement list, coming up empty-handed. I said “You know, there is usually a reason for persistent microclotting, and the list is short: Vitamin K2, collagen, green protein powders with a lot of Vitamin K1 and K2, aluminum containing antacids – and something new to me – Zeolite.” A lightbulb seemed to go off and she said, “I use TRS Zeolite Spray.” (This is one of the three which my ND colleague had recommened in our online discussion). I said, “Ohhhh?” It turns out that she had been using TRS Zeolite spray for nearly two-and-a-half years. Her ND had tested her and advised that she was laden with mold and heavy metals, including arsenic and mercury, so that she needed to chelate them with Zeolite. It never made it onto her supplement list. “Why not?” I asked. “Oh, I’ve been taking that forever and didn’t think it counted.” She also wondered out loud if that might not be harming her kids, as she has been giving to them for some time also. “You know, I had stopped giving it to my daughter, but restarted it recently and now she is having balance issues.” I asked her to stop the TRS Zeolite spray, and also suggested that also she not give it to her children. We made a plan to recheck her microclotting in another month or two.

That afternoon I was catching up with my office mate Dr Fazio, telling him about my Zeolite story among others, and he asks: “What’s in the stuff? Like, what is is chemical composition.” I said, “Well, Zeolite. I’m actually not sure. Let’s look it up.”

From Wikipedia:

Zeolite is a family of several microporous, crystalline aluminosilicate materials commonly used as commercial adsorbents and catalysts. They mainly consist of silicon, aluminium, oxygen, and have the general formula Mn+1/n(AlO2)−(SiO2)x･yH2O where Mn+1/n is either a metal ion or H+. These positive ions can be exchanged for others in a contacting electrolyte solution. H+ exchanged zeolites are particularly useful as solid acid catalysts.

Dear Lord! Aluminosilicates!! They contain aluminum!!! If you have been following this Substack, you might know by now that aluminum in our bloodstream is catastrophic, as it promotes flocculation, the sludging of red blood cells, platelets and proteins. It’s the same process, using aluminum, which is used to induce solid waste to settle out of liquid sewage. Ooof, this was ugly.

Now it made sense that the wound packs which the military was using would promote micro emboli.

And it also made sense that my patient with the 4 of 4 microclotting was doing so poorly. She was literally poisoning herself on a daily basis with the “natural” chelator. Geesh!

Another week went by and I had a visit with a different patient who has made some progress, but not what I would expect for all the therapies that we have utilized. I took a scan through her med and supplement list before we started and what did I see? Zeolite. During the visit I asked her how long she had been on it? One year. What was the reason? Mold toxicity and heavy metals. And who recommended it? An ND. Sigh. Another nickel.

At the end of the day, “natural” therapies understandably hold more appeal than pharmaceutical ones, as I have said above. Over time, in the LEC, we are using more and more plant-based medicines in our practice. But, and it’s a big BUT, “natural” doesn’t always equal safe, and an ND doesn’t necessarily understand what effect spikopathy has on the body, or that it could be amplifying what symptoms they are seeing. As we continue to learn about how to effectively heal from PASC and the COVID shots, we need to use many different tools, some of which are pharmaceuticals. At baseline, we endeavor to do no harm, and when our clinical experience and lab testing show us that a therapeutic is hurting patients, we should take it out of our toolbox. I would assert that, in a post-COVIDian era, Zeolite should be crossed off the list.

Love and Marriage

Three things have me thinking about love and marriage this week: a few tough conversations with my wife Kerrie, the recent second marriage of a close colleague, and the death of a patient’s husband.

Kerrie and I have been together since the Fall of 1992. We took our relationship for a test drive, so-to-speak, when we moved in together in August 1994. We didn’t get married until May 1997, the same year that both my sister and brother-in-law got married.

Our approach was simple and frugal. We bought her lavender rose bouquet on our walk to City Hall in Center City Philadelphia. Judge Rayford Means conducted a civil ceremony in his office on his lunch break. We had been in the court room and watched him sentence someone to a lengthy sentence in prison just moments before. The layers of meaning were not lost on us, and just in case they were, when we left the Justice Center, the police guarding the entrance were laughing ruefully and said almost in unison “Another life sentence handed out!” My close friend Paul, with whom I had weathered three years of nursing school, was my best man. Two of Kerrie’s art school classmates and former apartment-mates Anne and Linda were her maids of honor. Afterwards we enjoyed a feast at our favorite Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, Lee How Fuk. I know that my dad and Kerrie’s dad were both relieved when they heard of our wedding, because their bank accounts had just taken a huge hit. My sister and Kerrie’s brother both had lavish weddings with rehearsal dinners, more than a hundred people in attendance, and a big celebration afterwards. Sadly, they were then both divorced after about one year of marriage.  Here we are twenty seven years later, and still growing together. 

It would be too easy for me to say that the reason we are still married is because we are more mature or more committed than others, although we do each have some of those qualities.  I certainly don’t feel superior to other people who have gone through the crucible of divorce. A saving grace of our relationship has been the tool of Reevaluation Counseling, or RC, and the ability to listen to each other which that has cultivated in us.  But if I am being brutally honest, I would say that staying married for this long owes a lot to luck, fate, and codependence as much as anything else.

Yesterday I told my wife that we are both wounded birds trying to live in community with each other. I’ve never understood or been sympathetic, let alone admiring, when a couple celebrating their 50th year anniversary quips that they never had an argument. The idea is unfathomable to me. If you are two distinct individuals, who are growing over time through the different stages of life and human development, I simply don’t think it is possible to not ever argue. 

My wife has often described me as a strong cup of tea.  Other people who have had childhoods and physical ailments similar to mine have easily fallen into addiction and self-destruction. I know this because over the last forty years I have counseled with some of them, and more than a couple are dead.  Living in Philadelphia for a decade made this harder in some ways, because of experiencing armed robberies, muggings, interrupting a rape and generally feeling unsafe in an unrelenting atmosphere of racial tension and urban violence… it doesn’t tend to reassure someone about the benign reality and safety of the world.  I would say that one of my personal stages of development has been to tame my inner fire and rough edges so that I respond more calmly and thoughtfully in situations which I historically felt as provocative.  

At the risk of being cliché, what comes to mind is a song which Garth Brooks wrote and performed back in the early 90s. (I note that at least one person on You Tube included this song as one of the most annoying songs ever! LOL!!)

Standing Outside the Fire by Garth Brooks

We call them cool
Those hearts that have no scars to show
The ones that never do let go
And risk it the tables being turned

We call them fools
Who have to dance within the flame
Who chance the sorrow and the shame
That always come with getting burned

But you got to be tough when consumed by desire
‘Cause it’s not enough just to stand outside the fire
We call them strong
Those who can face this world alone
Who seem to get by on their own
Those who will never take the fall

We call them weak
Who are unable to resist
The slightest chance love might exist
And for that forsake it all

They’re so hell bent on giving, walking a wire
Convinced it’s not living if you stand outside the fire

Standing outside the fire
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried it is merely survived
If you’re standing outside the fire

One dynamic of our marriage, which some couples may recognize, is that when one’s partner in life vibrates at a low or very high pitch, we respond inversely. I’m used to this in marriage, and it is helpful that both my wife and I recognize it and acknowledge it with the intention to recalibrate ourselves when it happens.  When at least one partner is doing this consciously it can help de-escalate a tense situation. We say “As long as you zig when I zag, we’re good.” Allow me to explain this with reference to an old friend.

David Kraskow is an old friend and another nurse who I first met at our local regional medical center in 2000.  He is ten years my senior and has had his experiences of human development, meditation, spiritual practice, and intentional growth courses. He is self-described as pollyanna, without any negative connotation. For a period of years, we commuted together to work as we both were on the night shift and my house was along the way.

David encouraged my vinophilic interests, inviting me to weekly wine tastings at a local establishment, as well as monthly wine tastings with a vinophile society.  For a stretch of at least three years, we developed a ritual of returning to his home at the end of a night shift and sharing a glass of the most recent vin du jour.  I know that drinking alcohol at 7:30 in the morning would be cause for many to suspect alcoholism, but I will assert that having worked the night shift, it was our equivalent of stopping by the bar on the way home, and we imbibed in moderation.

The wine we were drinking was always a topic of discussion, but nothing was off-limits.  Being a strong cup of tea, a person of convictions and strong opinions, there would invariably be moments in the conversation were I would assert a rhetorical or empirical question, and David’s reply would send me over the edge. With equanimity he would say, “Yes, that is a question.” Aaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!  In the seesaw of our relationship, it would feel like we were on the playground and he was a playmate who had height and weight on me and he had just propped me up in the air. All I could do was flail and scream to “Let me down!”  

I’ve come to notice a similar dynamic between myself and my practice partner, Pierre. He is an interesting combination of steely character, intelligence and curiosity, with an easygoing, carefree and generous approach to life. “Wow” is his most frequently used reply to any message via text. If he wasn’t a guy, I would say he is the most Valley Girl guy I have ever met.  All that is missing in his messages is “like”, as in “Like wow!” Small insight: he attended medical school in the Caribbean, where he would wind surf during the day and study at night. That is to say, he is not your typical doctor. 

So, my challenge to be more steady and less reactive in response to my partner has been accepted. I recognize an opportunity to grow when it presents itself. One other thing I have learned over many years of marriage is that if we are growing, we do not seek out people who are mirror images of ourselves, but instead seek relationships which include people who come from different backgrounds, have different world views, and have different manners of reacting and interacting with the world.  It would be too easy to slide into a pitch for diversity and inclusiveness, but I am talking about what we seek out for ourselves rather than what would be imposed upon us. Having worked in large urban hospitals, I have experienced the joy and sorrow of interacting with so many different kinds of people.

Pierre is exceedingly generous and forgiving in his treatment of healthcare professionals who remain embedded in the system which has implemented the plandemic. He would be the first to say that if the stars hadn’t aligned in a certain manner, he would still be plugging away in the system, worshipping the medical journals and buying the narrative. As a person who is vaccine-injured, or at least that is the excuse I give, I feel what Joni Mitchell would call a ‘thunderhead of judgement’ for those who continue to endorse the COVID shots as safe and effective, and thus continue to maim and kill innocent people. It feels hard to forgive and empathize with those nurses and doctors, when every day I have to overcome the physical, mental and emotional limitations imposed by the spike protein on my existence – and try to help heal others who are more severely injured and disabled. In upcoming Substacks, I plan to write about moral choices in history and the present, without resorting to a black and white/good guys vs bad guys approach, while seeking to understand how and why people make the decisions they do.

Today, as I write, a patient of mine is holding a funeral service for her husband of twenty eight years. What makes this especially poignant is that less than two weeks ago, they were both here in Ithaca so that I could treat her with stem cells and exosomes. We have delivered this therapy to patients in a protocol which follows the phase two clinical trials of Vitti Labs https://www.vittilabs.com/research-development/#research, in which they do infusions on day one, three and five. We also deliver exosomes nasally and via nebulization. There was ample time to spend one-on-one with the patient and her husband over the course of five days, and the love between them was palpable. Her husband was tender and sweet, of good cheer and very thoughtful in his words and actions. I enjoy hearing the story of how a couple met, and their story is unusual, in that they became friends in grade school, boyfriend and girlfriend in middle school, and then married twenty eight years ago. They have children and twenty grandchildren. Less than a week after they returned home, her husband was killed in a car crash.

Woking in the Emergency Department (ED) for fourteen years, and trauma at the end of my ED career, I have had a lot of contact with people who suffered serious injuries, some of whom died, following a motor vehicle crash. It is still stunning to interact with someone who is so full of life, and in what feels like mere moments later, is dead. We are holding this patient, her husband and their family in our prayers, and on this day especially, pray that God will ease their pain, and join them in celebration of the joyful kindness which their husband/father/grandfather radiated during his life.

For my colleague and friend who recently remarried, my modest and brief advice is to nurture your capacity to listen to each other, often and well. Try not to blame each other, and be quick to sincerely apologize for your missteps and thoughtless moments. Try to notice, and acknowledge (out loud guys), what you appreciate about them, and what they do. Plan to grow, and change, together, in the time with which you are blessed.

L’chaim! Mazel tov!

P.S. Short comments with words of wisdom from living in relationship are welcome.

P.S.S. My partner in practice at the Leading Edge Clinic, Dr Pierre Kory, just published the first of four installments on Adjunctive Cancer Care. Pleaes Subscribe to his Substack to read these, at https://substack.com/home/post/p-145035952?source=queue