I found Dr. Broffman and his Pine Street Clinic, established in San Anselmo, CA in 1982, on line. His name appeared fortuitously under my recurrent researches into colon cancer. Dr. Broffman, through the auspices of his Pine Street Foundation,
About Us
Founded in 1989, the Pine Street Foundation’s mission is to help people with cancer and other chronic or debilitating diseases reach more informed treatment decisions through education, research, and community-based medical service programs. This is accomplished through meta-analysis of medical literature from around the globe, through the conduct of innovative clinical trials, and through conducting public health diagnostic screenings and treatment programs. Critical to our efforts continues to be our emphasis on ensuring the highest scientific quality of our research designs and trial data. Our research program also supports and informs our education and treatment programs; by publishing the results of our work in reputable medical journals, we are able to make the results of our efforts widely available to other researches, practitioners, and patients.
had done a very thorough job of researching and organizing information from clinical scientific studies relative to adjuvant cancer treatments in combination with chemo therapy. (See: Colon Cancer, Chemotherapy, & Antioxidants— Author: By Johanna Altgelt, Helen Ly, & Michael McCulloch). Or, just look up Pine Street Foundation. I certainly wish that I had found Dr. Broffman and consulted with him in 2009-10, five years earlier, when I was going through chemo. He would have helped me a great deal in answering the many serious questions which I had which my western oncologist, Dr. Meyer, was utterly incapable of answering.
And not just “utterly incapable of answering”… my questions with regards adjuvant and alternative therapies which might be used in conjunction with chemo. Rather, he… the neat, tidy, well-tailored, diminutive… Herr Doktor Meyer seemed… arrogantly… proudly, belligerently… uninformed. Proud of his calculated refusal… his unstudied western ignorance… of anything outside of his singular mission. He hadn’t read any of the scientific research studies like the ones mentioned above in Dr. Broffman’s thoughtful work. Of course not! Why should he!? It was all hogwash!! No. I seriously doubt it. My truth is… that he appeared to me to be there for one thing and one thing only. To sell me the most expensive
pharmaceutical product—FOLFOX—on the market at the time, with the implanted shunt and the magical pump, and to put me through the most absurdly expensive diagnostic devices that western medicine has yet contrived. All for the purpose of making the most money possible out of my bad luck.
But, I don’t want to get started on the egregious shortcomings of insulting modern western medical practices this early in the morning! God forbid. My heart just can’t take it anymore.
So. Please allow me to pour you another soothing cup of dragonwell green tea, dear cyber-reader. And, breathe. Breathe deeply. There.
Dr. Broffman was my kind of guy. My kind of “east meets west”, well-rounded doctor. A grounded healer. Dr. Broffman was patently informed. Up to date on “all the worldly science”—new and old, ancient and cutting edge—available on the subject. Dr. Broffman was/is the real deal. Not a sales agent for the drug companies, or, a tool of the corporatized health industry. Not a proud member of the modern medical mafia. Not a foot-weary pawn… a foot-soldier in the hospital, drug and insurance cartels.
Not a “capitalist running dog… paper tiger” hospitalist!!
And what a cool place! The Pine Street Clinic, I mean. So warm. So down-to-earth natural. So welcoming. So… wooden. Lots of warm wood tones from real wood. Large glass jars filled with dried herbs. Book cases, books, and more… shelves and shelves of Chinese books. Cubby holes, nooks, crannies filled with curious objects. Curios. Curiosity!
A Chinese village apothecary? A quaint, tiny, eccentric museum? A cozy, compartmented, new-age-hipster library?
That’s it! Dr. Broffman’s Pine Street Clinic smacks of quiet, mysterious intricacies, and... avid curiosity!!
And two cancer sniffing golden poodles!! Min and… I forget. Their names. The cream-colored, calm, “emotional support” critters who greeted us—Lisa, Jasper (our labra-doodle puppy) and I—near the front door. Who, yes… They can sniff out cancer at the molecular level…
O, The Oprah Magazine: Sniffing Out Cancer
May 17, 2009
May 17, 2009
The Pine Street Foundation’s work on canine scent detection was featured in the June 2009 of O, The Oprah Magazine.
And kindness. Curiosity, warmth and down-to-earth kindness.
Yes. I would recommend the kindly Pine Street Clinic and the very serious Dr. Broffman to anyone who is interested in careful medical diagnosis.
For a second, or, a first opinion.
And, that is precisely what I was there for in February of 2014. After I received the unwelcome, sudden… but, not unexpected… actually, right-on-schedule… news that “my (post-chemo) cancer” had returned. And had mysteriously… almost instantaneously… grown to the size of a medium cocktail grapefruit!
What did I want to hear? What warm, encouraging “alternative news” was I seeking under what cold stone?
I don’t know. Honestly.
All I knew was that. I had just been coldly told… by my latest… third or fourth… oncologist at Eureka Internal Medicine… the frigid, white-lab-coated Dr. Hughes… that I was going to die in short order. And then coldly asked when I would like to schedule “my (post-chemo) surgery” for?
Was I just “killing time”? Trying to avoid the inevitable next round…?
Did I really think there was any “alternative solution” to metastatic stage IV colon cancer? Did I really hope to find a less invasive, less dangerous way of evicting dear young Temujin from the wooden house of the ethereal soul? Did I hope to find the Yellow Emperor himself hiding in the ash heap of history, or, perhaps an enlightened emissary of his who might have some pull in the court of the Great Khan?
Was I “clutching (grasping)….”
The idiom originated with Thomas More's Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1534). It indicates desperation. A drowning man will clutch/grab at anything, even at straws (this is the (older?) usage that means 'dry grass' not drinking straws) in an attempt to save himself.
Yes. Exactly. I was clutching, grasping, grabbing, grappling… like a drowning man gasping for air.
Ever been there, dear reader? Then you know how it feels.
A wooden crab trap float. A bobbing wine cork. A splinter of grace.
The silent tug of that surfboard leash upon the right ankle from the dark depths of swirling despair—
I had read on line about high-tech ultrasound and laser ablation in Palo Alto! About cryogenic surgery in Seattle! About whole body hypothermia clinics in Germany! About the newly arising promises of genetic tumor targeting popping up all over the map! About miraculous overnight cures with essiac tea! About rife therapy! About dandelions!
I was hoping! I was praying for miracles!
I was befuddled, afraid and… not convinced that I had absolutely no reasonable alternatives to… hepatic re-section. In other words—
Immediate surgery. The knife. Plain old.
And then there was Dr. Broffman. In the warm light of one of his soothing, wooden session rooms. With a stack of well-researched, carefully selected papers in his quiet hands.
And he said. Calmly.
I have researched who are the best hepatic (liver resection) surgeons in the United States. This guy is ranked among the top ten surgeons by U.S. News and World Report.
Call Dr. Anton Bilchick’s office at John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, CA and see if he will take you.
Good luck.
