As part of my anti-cancer regimen I was encouraged by my physician to undertake a couple of treatments to stave off the cancer, one was a brand of chemotherapy and the other was an immunotherapy. I was, of course, ignorant of the negative side effects of either treatment, but I went ahead and gave them a whirl.

I was first introduced to the immunotherapy and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a few months after I started taking it most of the tumors in my lungs, called "cancerous nodules," had shrank and gone into remission. Wow! Even to this day I still take the immunotherapy and I have nothing but high regards for its efficacy.

The chemotherapy was a horse of a different color. My first warning sign is that the initial package I received came with a blood pressure tester, little did I realize why. Although my healthcare providers were insistent I stay on the program, the reality is that it would shoot my blood pressure up to the clouds. My diastolic and systolic readings gained an average of 80 points!

My doctors were prescribing medications to reduce my blood pressure but I felt the effects of the chemotherapy were too draconian to gamble on. The way it affected my blood pressure I felt it was putting me in "stroke territory" so I told my doctor I was stopping the treatment, I didn't want any further part of it.

Yet and still, my natural inclination in both cases was to go along with my doctors and see if I could receive any benefit from either treatment. I realize I've survived the usual statistics of my prognosis by many years, but I still feel I should keep an open mind on any new developments coming down the pipeline. You never know.