Dottie Boner

In November 2001, while running Power Point on a large screen to support my Pastor during a church service, I suffered a grand-mal seizure without warning. I woke up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with a tumor in the right temporal lobe of my brain.

On January 2, 2002, I had brain surgery at Akron General Hospital. Dr. George Markarian did the surgery and reported to my husband and family that the tumor looked benign and that he was able to remove it all.

Unfortunately, the pathology report that came later indicated that the tumor was a malignant anaplastic astrocytoma. We were devastated.! Not only was the prognosis poor, but we had walked this path once before. My first husband died from the same cancer in 1995, at the age of 34, after 15 years of marriage. And, I am blessed with my current husband, Gordy, who also lost his wife to cancer of the small intestine. God had made us a family as we healed through the grief with our three children. Then this !

I was sent to the Cleveland Clinic for follow-up treatment. They presented an experimental protocol which would start with radiation that “could leave me blind and deaf.” I would then have one year of chemotherapy treatment that would leave me “very sick, but death would happen anyway.” We found no peace with a treatment that offered us only prolonged life, at best, and a horrible price of misery for us all.

We had been praying for little Mary Vukich, who was treated at the Burzynski Clinic for several inoperable brain tumors, and we knew she was getting great results. Friends put us in contact with her parents, who helped us tremendously ! We prayed that God would open doors for us to go to the clinic and He made his plan clear when a church from the Houston area called to offer their missionary apartment to us if we flew to Houston. They became our Texas church family and we continue our contact with these gracious people.

At the Burzynski Clinic, I was sent for an MRI to evaluate the current status of my condition. TheDoctors saw a shadow that could be returning tumor or simply scar tissue from the surgery. A PET scan indicated it was scar tissue. Understanding the prognosis for this type of tumor and the high rate of recurrence, the doctors at the clinic put me on sodium phenylbutyrate (PB) tablets, 48 per day, in an attempt to prevent a recurrence. We stayed in Texas for 2 weeks, visiting the clinic daily for monitoring of vitals and regular blood tests. We found the doctors and nurses at the clinic to be some of the some of the most professional and compassionate medical staff we have ever known. I remained on the PB’s for nine months, with regular MRI’s, all of which were clear. After that, I was able to stop taking the PB’s and began taking Dr. Burzynski’s Aminocare supplement to “protect the cells” from a recurrence.

It has been 2 ½ years since I had the craniotomy. I have returned to work and there appears to be no deficit from the extensive surgery. I have never had a recurrence from the fierce brain tumor that rocked our lives. We give thanks for each and every day and are thankful for the work of Dr. Burzynski’s clinic, which is helping people like me who are given no hope elsewhere. We are learning to live by the words of David as he spoke from Psalm 91, “He who dwells in the shelter of the most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” I am now 44 years old and living again, happy and healthy and blessed to be alive, after being told I would be dead by now.

This patient can be contacted at bonerdottie@msn.com.