I had visited a well-known cancer specialist to ask if there was still a possibility to do a curative therapy.

I had prepared the "short" version of my anamnesis for him.

What he told me was:

1. I am young, too young for not trying anything to save my life. It's much too early for palliative chemo.
2. The therapy of choice (right from the beginning) would have been "Auto-Allo-Tandem". That's because my mediastinal bulk had been so large.
Auto-Allo-Tandem means: high dose chemo plus *autologous* bone stem cell transplant afterwards (I still have stem cells left from 2002), within sterile room, in order to minimize tumour masses.
After some weeks pause: (not so extremly) high dose chemo plus *allogenic* bone stem cell transplant afterwards. Again in sterile room, but this time my stay will be much longer, as it is not my own stem cells.
To stabilize the cancer, I was to receive three more cycles of Gemzar before the first stay in sterile room.

As a result of the allogenic transplant, I would receive a new immuno-system.
The real sense of all this rounds in the "old man simulator"* is that there is a good chance this new immuno system will start to fight the remaining cancer cells.

What he told me was very convincing (this man is a very convincing man, that's for sure, and has a gift to explain complicated matters in layman's terms) and sounded quite logic and understandable to me.

After we had talked, I made my decision: "bring it on!"

On Thursday, March 3rd, I made a visit at the HLA-lab to have my HLA-phenotype registered.
On Friday, March 4th, I went to the hematlogy to register there.

The CT-scan from the same day showed a disaster area:
my left lung was partially collapsed, as there was more then one liter of fluid inside pleura - 8.5 cm high.

The left lung showed "multiple" tumours - the MD didn't bother to count them.

In addition, there are now also multiple tumours within my right lung.

First things first: on Monday, March 7th, I had my pleura punctured and the fluid sucked out. I had feared this procedure quite a lot, but was lucky enough to encounter a very nice and understanding MD - she gave me lots of Valium before starting. This helped very much to make the procedure bearable. It does not hurt, by the way, because one is given local anesthetics before they insert the big sucking needle, but the sound resulting from the needle entering one's body is enervating nevertheless - like when breaking the crust of Creme Broulle - sounding ever so soft...

After this, my cough was gone and I was able to sleep again. I had not slept very much during the last 3 weeks.

On Tuesday, March 8th, the next cycle of chemotherapy (the 18th) was started. I again received Gemzar.

I wanted to have 100 mg Primobolan Depot injected instead of 20 mg Cortisone.

But guess what.

This stuff is no longer available on the market, since 1997 or so.
I would have received it through completly official channels, but no chance.

I have no idea how bodybuilders manage to get hold of it. Schering does no longer produce it.

The MDs offered me Deca-Durobolin, but I read about the side-effects and told them: "forget it".

This image shows me with face bloated from chemotherapy. This effect will be gone within two days.

*I am calling high dose chemo and long-term detention within sterile room "a round in the old-man-simulator", because when you are finally released after some weeks, you definitly feel like a very old man. Your body usually can handle the first 10 days OK, but then you start losing shape quickly.