How To Help A Loved One With Cancer

You're trying to help a friend, a spouse, a neighbor, somebody you love. And I want to acknowledge you're doing something very important if they're dealing with cancer or chronic disease. But what you're doing is an incredible act of love, being an advocate. They may be feeling overwhelmed, especially if you're starting down the confusing medical options, the maze of medicine, insurance roadblock, financial questions. But you're not alone, and there's a path forward. My name is Dr. Dino Prada. For the last 25 years, our team has helped patients who failed the top hospitals across the US and have failed all kinds of care and the risk. What we used is precision targeting with customized care which has helped them. That means the best of both in a very precision model. And what I want to share with you today as an advocate for someone you love, is that your role is an important one. And it's an important thing because the person that is picking up that phone to call us, and we've seen this all the time, isn't the patient. It's someone like you and someone who sees the struggle and wants to help. And the role is a powerful one, but it can be stressful. You're the one searching for the best answers, asking the hard questions, making sure nothing's overlooked. And sometimes the challenge is knowing what's even possible beyond the standard of care options because you haven't seen it. What else? I haven't seen any of this stuff. What does it mean? And so I want to tell you what it means because it's important. The one size fits all model of standard oncology is not the end all. It's using double blind placebo clinical trials, which means they treated everybody with the same type and stage of cancer the same way. And most of this cancer treatment is often predictable with late stage disease, unfortunately, the diagnosis, you can get the staging, you can get a protocol, but you're going to get the same treatment. But no two cancers are the same. And today, with all the data we have and all the information we have, it makes all the difference in the world because now we can identify what that patient needs individually. That's why the approach I'm talking about has to do with mapping out the patient's unique biology. It's tumor genetics, immune system, so we call tumor micro environment. So I'll go into a little bit more detail. NGS genomics, which is the DNA understanding the genetic breaks and what targets that patient needs. The RNA transcriptomics tells us the prognosis, where the cancer is going, even the factors that Are causing it to spread, spread and grow. The spatial biology and immune profiling telling us what we need to do for the immune system. In basically short, we're starting to learn how to attack that cancer from a full blueprint. But because we have that information, we can do it in a way that can often avoid losing hair or feeling tired. I mean, a lot of our patients are here and they go hiking and they have energy and they're responding better because of the precision than they were even after they failed some of the top hospitals across the country. So this advantage in diagnostics is the key to the second opinion, because otherwise, if you're going to all the same cancer institutions, you're going to get similar, similar second opinions because it's the same NCCNN national comprehensive cancer network guideline recommendations where precision just opens up the options tremendously. That's critically important. On the other side, you have just integrative medicine. Now, if integrative medicine isn't targeted, it's also going to miss. What do you need for the immune system? What's really needed for that patient? Instead of giving everybody the same thing, like you might say, we're going to use ivermectin, maybe that's helpful, but it's not in all cases. Methylene blue. That may not be in all cases. And I can go on. So it's important to know that integrative medicine kind of has the soft. Integrative medicine is supportive, like people will do. Yoga, nutrition, acupuncture, those are all nice, they're supportive, may help with pain or whatever. But we're talking about is actually treating the cancer with precision targeting. Right. And so this is why the integrative approach, when it's done with the genetics and the RNA and the immune profiling and it's matched with the best of the conventional and everything's targeted and combined on the patient. It changes everything. So now we're combining this. We're able to use things like image guided surgery. We go in right to the tumor, deliver it, seal it, come out with a band aid. Now, when you do IV chemo, the reason people lose hair and they lose all their energy because 95% of the chemo goes to your organs and central nervous system and it doesn't go to the tumor. That's only 5% goes to the tumor. The rest goes to the rest of the body. So when we do targeting, we can get 100% of it to the tumor with just a catheter the size of a hair, go into the tumor, deliver it, seal it and come out with a band aid. And now we're getting 100% response to the tumor immunotherapy and teach the immune system to go around the body and go after these micro metastatic or other cancer cells. So it's important, it's really important to understand these options. When you're looking at what's the best thing to help a loved one, the next one is tackling costs, right? Because the insurance already gives you huge limitations. If all you're using is insurance, you're going to be stuck with standard of care. And we know the great limitations that are there. So let's talk about that because it's always the elephant in the room has to do with costs. And we understand that insurance often doesn't cover precision medicine or the integrative care that the patient may need. But there are things that people often assume that the financial side is impossible before they understand what is going on and what's available to care. So I'll help you because when you're an advocate, you need to understand what all the potential benefits are, right? Because patients can use terminal death benefits or they can get fundraising, or sometimes they can get support, or you don't know what care you need until you do testing. So it may be actually something you can afford. Right? So before you jump into all the costs, it's important to start with the best treatment first and then work backwards. Right now you can understand, okay, treatment cost, travel costs, this is what it's going to take to get this person well. And now we have a path. Now the next step is how do we get there? And there are groups, groups we work as, particularly in our organization with sometimes insurance plans that are by employer groups or health shares or health savings account. There's a lot of tools that can be assisting and help people through these processes. And there are some you'll be able to get back from billing, but may not all be able to get all of it. So these are the important things that you'll go through as you go through that process. And the long term value of pursuing an approach that's designed with maximum quality of life, minimizing the waste of time and ineffective care and suffering that a loved one goes through that's worth everything. And that's what we do. That's what precision does. Put that into account because you might be going here and there and wasting a lot of time and energy on a therapy that's going to work or going to cause more pain and suffering. It's going to Lead you further down a more complex road. That is something you may not be able to recover from, both physical health and it's going to have a financial impact as well. So that's something you need to think about. And that's why as you go through the process, I know we always are very transparent with our patients. They always know all their costs involved and everything to the best of the ability, so that you know that going in. And I think that's a critical part too. The next part is results that build confidence, right? When you're an advocate, you recently, you know, reaching out, connecting, you're talking around, trying to find out what are the results, what are the best hospitals, what are the best care. And I'm going to tell you, the best care is the care that is the best targeted for the individual. It's got to be advanced testing that reveals the multiple unaddressed targets and options that can help that patient renew their hope. With good targets, medicine that's delivered in a way that makes a difference, that's going to help significantly. These aren't isolated cases. We see this, you know, I can say thousands of times throughout the year that we get inquiries and connecting with people. We see this over and over again. And you can't just give a magic bullet. You have to find the target for that patient, because that's the key to the treating cancer in our clinical experience, is having the exact fit that that patient needs. Once you have that or the best fit, you're going to have always, always better responses. And we've seen it in our published data, as I said before, better outcomes, response rates in late stage cancers, quality of life, 35 times better response and 43 times better quality of life. That's significant, right? So as an advocate, your next steps become, okay, I'm an advocate. I got to all this. And so what I tell you to do is don't wait. Don't let the patient be rushed into something that they don't want to do. Let them get all the information they need so they have all their options. And then from there, you're able to make a good call. You got a better diagnosis and a better treatment plan. And now you're going to be able to see the path to better results. So the consultation is important. You come in, you do the testing, you get all the information done, whether it's with us or wherever you're going. But you need that data. You can make the right decisions if you have the right information. You can't just be rushed into things because they may not be the best way forward and that's what happens. Usually patient comes down with cancer and is rushed here and there and family members running in. And as a loved one and as an advocate your job is to keep them still get all that testing, get all the right direction and then allow them to get the care they need. That's going to make the big difference. So if you need help and you want our assistance reach out. We're here to help you. We have people that this is what we do. We've been doing this for two and a half decades. We can share with you tools and information costs all the things you need to know to help a loved one and you don't have to do this alone because like I said we can help you and we're here to do that and we can answer any specific questions that are important for you. I hope this was helpful. May the Lord bless you on your journey to healing.