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James Michael Hartman Jr. went home to be with the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, Saturday December 13 at 8:20pm. Until we meet again.

Update on Chemo/Radiation/VitC

Well for now I really do not know what to say given that the doctors really haven't said much other than " moving forward".

But another thing that we have been looking at is "hyper-immunized milk" that was introduced to me by someone that had posted a comment on my blog. So right now we are trying to get a hold of an Amish gentleman that sells colostrum and may be able to point us in the right direction to proceed. But as far as I can tell he just sells produce so we're praying for the increase of the Lord if it is His will.

It's been awhile since I posted but that was due to strength issues. And over the past 2 weeks it's been a struggle between pain and fatigue. To the point that most time I've had to have people read to me given that I didn't have the strength to do it myself. We thank you for the prayers that went out to the brothers that came to visit. So were praying for his safe return back to Argentina to his family Lord willing. The Lord is merciful!


JMHJ

Chemo plus Radiation

The latest plan that the doctors have come up with is that on Monday they want to start doing the chemo along with the radiation because of the speed at which the cancer is growing. They gave me this news on Friday when I went in to see my oncologist for an appointment. Of course the other news was that I had 6 months to a year if things went well. Well last time that I checked the Lord was the only one that knew my appointed time.

Just to give kind of a refresher course on this whole experience, so all of you have a better idea, in Feb 2007 diagnosed with testicular cancer. From the get go, I started off with a a very strict regimen, basically just vegetables, herbs and supplements. No meats and hardly any fruits. This lasted for about 4 months then started to do the chemo given that there was no effect. After this it was about August when the cancer started to come back with force. Numbers were low so i hit it with everything, Joanna Budwig diet, green shakes, barley pills, on and on and on. Over 100 oz of juice a day, carrot, broccoli, beets, garlic and on. My pH was like 9.5 to 10. But the cancer remained full speed ahead and grew stronger and faster. So after this is when I went to stem cell recovery to where I am now.

I am not saying that the people that are on the Internet are lying or any such thing but nobody has come to me with a regiment that has even begun to work. Of course everybody has the magic drink, or concoction, but none seem to work. So by God's good grace I continue to search but only if he gives the increase is anything going to work. That is the ultimate to the end of this whole excursion, only by His increase will anything work.

So I am absolutely obliged to anyone that has a direction for me to go, but this will give you all a better idea in that i have done the raw food, no sugar, high pH, mangosteen, flax seed oil/cottage cheese, nutrition, fermented foods, and not only that but have done them together for quite a while.

Oh, and now I even started doing Vit. C infusion so we'll see how that goes. Its suppose to help with side effects of chemo if nothing else, but we'll see. Praise the Lord.


JMHJ

The Lord's Will

This be kind of a short post given the day that I had. I had to go to the hospital today, the right side of my mid-section became numb and almost uncontrollable and my heart felt as though it was going to pound out of my chest. Long story short, I have a 2cm tumor pushing on my brain. The one place I really didn't want the cancer to spread to, but this is God's will. To all of you that I may or may not see again in this world, I pray for the Lord to guide and direct your paths to everlasting life. And for those of you that may just be lost sheep, I pray the Lord uses the necessary means to crush your heart and give you eyes to see and ears to hear.


I do have a wonderful brother coming up from Argentina to lend a hand in this perilous time, I only ask that you pray for his family while he is away and for his safe travel to and from.

Until we hear the trumpet sound, come Lord Jesus Christ come, who is the Alpha and the Omega, Amen!


Jim

Vitamin C / Radiation

I started my first round of Vita. C yesterday. Except for that it made me extremely tired it went well. I felt a lot better doing vitamin c than doing any of the chemo that I have experienced. I do believe that to be more psychological than anything but what ever works.

This is kind of a bunch of updates at once, the one above which was last Wednesday and this next one which happened on Friday. I went to UMMC on Friday to get some test done to see if I even qualify for radiation. All actually went well, but what a tiring day. When I got there the first thing they did was to prepare me for surgery. The whole idea was to put a camera in my artery starting in my groin area and feed it up to my liver. Two things were to come out of this. One was to measure the amount of blood flowing to my liver to be sure their was enough. And the other was to deposit a small amount of those radioactive glass beads and make sure no more than a certain amount escaped into my lungs. Kind of like a "dry run" if you will. If to many would escape it would cause a lot of scare tissue in the lungs which would obviously cause more problems than help. So they are to call me this Monday about their findings.

Then after that i had to go downstairs to radiation to have a cast made of my mid-section for when they do the radiation therapy. The idea is that this will pinpoint each tumor and burn each one up. So between waiting and the actual cast fitting it took another three hours. So total for the day, we started 5:30 in the morning and did not get home until 7:30 Friday night. So you can imagine how tired i was when i finally got home.

So the Lord gave us a wonderful sabbath to rest up. And rest up we did, slept most of the day but did get some good studying in until the nurse showed up to change my port anyway.

This Tuesday i go back in for another dose of the vitamin c. Lord willing this will take care of the problem that i will not have to do any radiation.

Well this is the update to this point so far. Lord willing these updates will become more frequent about the homestead and less frequent about the cancer. But we'll see.


JMHJ

"Time to reap"

Well today we had a brother stop by today with his family. We started off by butchering the chickens and the duck. I didn't take to many, but here is a couple of pictures of the bounty from our Lord.

This is Bob taking the head off his first chicken. He had butchered plenty of deer so by the second chicken he was a pro.

This is his first born son Bobby holding the chicken while my dad teaches Bob the ropes on skinning a chicken.

And of course this is the finished product. The chicken still needed to be a little more cleaned up, which was done by our wives. Then after that we raked leaves and put them in the garden to create some organic matter for next years garden,"Lord willing". And bringing a wonderful day of fellowship to closure we all went inside for a lesson on parents and children and duties to the Lord. Praise the Lord, what a glorious day. The only thing that would have made it better is to have more brothers there. Goodnight,

JMHJ

Nearing the End

Well I talked to my doctor in the Gettysburg cancer center today and things have looked better at other times. It seems that the radiation isn't much of an option anymore and the only thing he can hope to do is try to get a little more time and control the pain. My numbers are back over 1200 and growing quickly. So Lord's will. The best thing about believing in the providence of an almighty God is that no matter what we conjure up, He will make sure we end up with what's best for us. For now,


JMHJ

On to Radiation

Trying to get caught up, last Tuesday I went to see another radiation specialist on getting rid of the tumors on my liver. It appears that I have quite a few lesions on the left plus the right side of my liver. So they sent me to a new doctor specializing in the liver, apparently their not to worried about the tumors in my chest or the abdomen.

Their solution that they came up with so far is, they cut a small incision in my artery in the groin area, slide a tube up the vein, and distribute these little glass balls to the area of each one of these lesions. Now the purpose of these balls is two-fold. One they go into the veins of the liver until they get lodged in the capillaries and cut off the blood supply to each lesion. The second use is that they are covered in radiation which of course kills the tumors, or that's the theory anyway.

Now their thinking is that the tumor in the lung no problem, the tumor in the abdomen 50/50, but the liver, even after that procedure their will be more trouble on it's way. And I have no idea as of yet what would be next. Once again, I have to tell you, I'm voting for the vitamin c.

My Oncologist has talked to the top doctor on this type of cancer, and he said their is no more chemo, I've had every drug they have and nothing worked. He also talked to the top doctors at Sloan Kettering to no avail. Their are some other thing that they are looking into, but nothing real decisive yet.

The reason that it took so long to get a post out is that the next day I went into the hospital due to pain and was not released until Friday at 2:00. Then of course we had to get ready for the sabbath which ended around 6:00 tonight. So I give all praise and glory to the Lord for another sabbath with my wife. Which we achieved some great study in Job and Luke.

Lord willing I should post soon,



JMHJ

Homestead Update

I figured I would give an update while I could. I'm feeling alot better now than I was earlier on in the week. So good news, I even have pictures.

If you look closely you can see the orchard that we have just planted. It consist of two pear trees, a fig tree, apple tree, almond tree and a banana tree. The first time that I bought trees I bought them young trying to save money. If you decide to plant an orchard, DO NOT do this. These trees are older and will start fruiting next year. You'll spend a lot more money but you'll also have fruit. The trees that I bought TWO YEARS ago still have another TWO TO THREE YEARS before we can expect fruit. The last addition I hope to get planted this year is an olive tree. But we'll see, their pretty expensive.

You can barely make out the grape arbor on the left. We hope to make wine from the grapes and the pears, Lord willing that He gives us the increase.

This is a picture of our Muscovy ducks that we had gotten when I was in for my last stem cell a month ago. She actually has five more ducklings that were inside the pen. I started off with the Peking duck but later learned that the Muscovy is a better duck for eating. Plus easier for breeding given that the Pekings need water for that. And since we do not have a pond as of yet, Muscovy's are more accommodating.

This is the chicken coop that I had started during last stem cell also. As you can see its mostly complete now just needs some final touches. That the next boxes in front, makes it a lot easier collecting eggs that way. Were up to about a dozen a day now, theirs nothing like range fed eggs.

This is a picture of our make shift corn crib. We'll build a more permanent one for next year, but for this year it was sufficient. Now anyone that knows know that we only live on an acre and a half. So you may be wondering how it is that we have full ears of corn. Here is my advise to you. Their are plenty of corporate farmers around all of us. Get it while it's good, we go out and pick up the fields behind the farmer, free food for you livestock, or in my case, poultry. You can't beat it. Now we took him some fresh eggs to be nice, and he loved it and told us their would be more next year. Now if you have children, that free labor, you could really clean the fields up and hardly have to buy any feed.


Now if you look closely, on the right hand side of the picture you can see thanksgiving dinner. The other ones will be dinner at a later date but Lord willing we'll have the duck for thanksgiving. Hopefully were going to have a little butcher party get together. Theirs about five chickens plus the duck that needs to be butchered.

This is just an overall picture of how things are located. You can now see the grape arbor and the coop all the way in the left rear of the picture. Now once again you can see on the right of the picture what appears to be sticks sticking up, that the orchard. And our garden is directly behind it. Lord willing He will give me my health for this spring and summer so we can have an increase at His discretion. To the left and behind is our house, that we pray to fill with believers, that are truly searching to live according to ways of the Lord.
Were going to get ready for the sabbath so I guess that's all for now, that and I'm out of pictures. So until the Lord allows that I post again, Adios.



JMHJ

Radiation

I wanted to post earlier on the new events going on around the homestead, but the pain has prevented me from doing so. Lord willing I'll be straightened out in the next day or so and will be able to get that part updated.

Well I had a PET/CT scan done last Thursday to see the results of these last two stem cell transplants. It appears that I now have metastasis in my liver area, chest and back area. Sound good to you, yeah, I didn't think so either.

So now they want to do radiation. To which I was to be doing today, but I had to get admitted to the hospital last night due to pain, so that got rescheduled for next Tuesday. And I guess while their talking to me about the radiation, they'll talk to me about clinical trials. So we'll see how things progress but I'm checking into intravenous vitamin c and voting for that. Talk soon,



JMHJ

New Doctor at UMMC

Well I had another appointment at the UMMC only this time with a specialist for my particular cancer. He has been following my situation but this is the first time I had actually met him. His suggestion was to do a PET scan to see if their are any tumors left. And if their are, he suggested that I go to Sloan Kettering in Manhattan to have them surgically removed. That is of course if the surgeons in Baltimore do not feel comfortable removing them. So right now the plan of course is to go to the UMMC on Thursday and have the PET scan done. And pray between now and then that their is no tumors but only according to the Lord's will.

I did ask him what his professional opinion was that this is the first time that the numbers had gone down by themselves without chemo. His answer to me was, he crossed his fingers and said,"let's hope." All I could do is laugh.

Is this what the world calls wisdom? Because I have to tell you, for all of you who actually depend on these doctors and think that they make a difference, my deepest sympathy goes out to you, and I pray if the Lord wills He gives you increase in your vision and hearing.

One of the major learning lessons that I have learned in this travail is that the unrighteousness of man abounds the righteousness of God and how truly perfect He is.



JMHJ

Are you as confused as I am?

I went to the cancer center today to have my blood checked. The numbers on my blood are looking good. White blood cells are normal at 4.2, hemoglobin, hemocretin and red blood cells are all a little low but look good considering what i have been through. Platelets are at 114 which is great since it was around 50 last week. So all in all as far as the blood goes, it is slowly starting to recover on it's own.

Now on to the confusing part. If you remember, after the first stem cell treatment, I felt great. My marker numbers came down to 7 and I had felt the best I felt in two years. But after 3 weeks when I went in to receive my second stem cell treatment, my bHCG had jumped up to 550 and the AFP was around 60.

Now when I received my first marker after my second stem cell treatment (stay with me, kind of confusing) the bHCG was 141 and the AFP was at a lower number but can't remember what. Now the bHCG is at 31, a little high and the AFP is at 5.3, normal. That's the good part. The bad part is that I'm in very uncomfortable pain and I have no idea why. I pray it's my body recovering, but at this point, who knows.

I have an appointment on Monday to see a doctor at UMMC just as a kind of preliminary in case I need to take a next step. Which I pray not, until next time,



JMHJ

Revision on progress

I believe I'll start this post a little different than the other post that I have written. As I sit here contemplating the In's and outs of this world, it has come to my attention that this cancer that is sustained in my flesh is like a papist and his false doctrine. I tried in the beginning to use the natural and harmless means to eradicate him. But in the end, he chained and beat me and continued to spread his false doctrine to the other cells and corrupt them.

So, I address him a couple more times, each time getting a little stronger each time with poison (or the true gospel) pleading with him for his withdraw in a peaceful manner. In the end to no avail but that he threw me on the rack stretched and beat me, then chained me to a post to be a spectacle to the world to repent of my confession then released me.

Now in the end, he has come back, once again, to a mirage of lies and false gospels, deceiving all the other cells with his idol worship, pagan holidays (Easter, Christmas, Halloween, birthdays etc.) and convinced the other cells if they pick the right political leaders all will be well, as he distorts, corrupts, and mutilates the other cells from their natural use to a use that is abominable. Then concludes by tying me up at the stake and threatening to burn me if I don't recant.

Praise the Lord that the joke is on him. He may have power over the flesh but not the soul, and to be absent in the flesh is to present with the Lord.

But on to the numbers at hand. My bhcg has gone back up to 141, which as you may or may not know, normal is 4. Afp is 16, normal 4. White blood cells have dropped to 1.3 normal being 4.0-10.

As much as I pray for the Lord to remove this thorn, I pray more for His will, for His wisdom is perfect. His knowledge absolute, eternal to eternal, everlasting! I praise my Lord and Savior, not that I am good, but that He is. Heaven is for those that have been chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son, sanctified by the Spirit, and find discipline and obedience in the commandments of God. Til then,


JMHJ

Numbers Update

I went to the cancer center this morning for a complete blood count. All of my cells are slowly recovering but at least their doing it on their own. After this stem cell transplant my body seems to be recovering better than all the times in the past. Which is intriguing considering what my body has been through, I'm surprised that it can still make it's own cells. And that's a good thing since my body does not react well when I receive blood or platelets. I usually receive Tylenol and 50mg of Benedryl to prevent hives that swell up my whole body.

I haven't received my marker numbers yet but Thursday I will be going back in for another complete blood count, so by then they should have the results back on the cancer count. Til' then,


JMHJ

Headed for Pa.

Well, Lord willing I'll be headed back to Pa. somewhere around two or three o'clock. Everything so far seems to be going to plan, or so called plan anyway. The plan right now is that my Aunt Sharon will pick me up and take me home. All my numbers seem to be OK, but I did need magnesium and potassium this morning. If it's anything like the first stem cell, my oncologist will take my marker numbers tomorrow when I go see them in Gettysburg. But we'll see, things seem to change a lot. Talk soon,


JMHJ

Fever over 104.0

I have been planning on posting a lot sooner but I've been pretty sick the last week. On Monday i started to get sick but it didn't really kick in until Tuesday afternoon. By then the fever was up to somewhere over 104.0 and climbing. It finally broke Thursday morning sometime around 3:30 to 4:00. I couldn't tell you if it even went any higher than that, that was just the last number i heard them say before i lost consciousness. It was a little more under control by Wednesday morning, and finally woke up soaking wet Thursday morning around 4:00. I pray the Lord continues His mercy upon me and i do not spike another fever before my wbc start to go up.

Tomorrow is the start of our sabbath so it will most likely be after that before i post again. Lord willing, my wife is to be here Friday evening, and my parents sometime Saturday afternoon. Of course my parents will leave Saturday evening and my wife will keep me company until Sunday evening. I praise the Lord for the visitors that He has given me both times I have been down here at UMMC. Talk soon,



JMHJ

Receive Stemcells today

Well I received my stem cells today. It was all around a pretty rough day. I was nauseated most of the day and tired even more of it. They gave me my stem cells around 2:00 and it took probably about an hour or two. It went well except this time the veins in my legs hurt, it felt like the muscles were cramping up.

Stem cell sounds like a big deal but it really isn't. Their frozen when they get here, thaw them into an extra large syringe, then just push them into your port, or vein or whatever. The only real side effect is that it taste like tomato soup from the preservative they put in the stem cells. Which you can also smell in the room while they are injecting them.

My father and aunt showed up today. Gave me someone to talk to in between dozing in and out.

I feel pretty worn down, I'll try to write later on this week but if it's anything like the last session it's going to be pretty rough until next Wed. or Thur. Talk soon.



JMHJ

Going back in / Second day chemo

As according to plan right now I will be going back in for treatment on Friday between 11:00 - 3:00. Lord willing it won't be any worse than the first time. I don't know if the treatments will be the same or not given that I will have a new doctor.

Last weekend I started to have pain in my back again but then it went away. It reoccurred last night bad enough for me to take pain reliever for it. I pray it's just from the work I've been trying to do to get things caught up before I go back in. But we'll see.


Sorry for the delay, this was to be posted on Thursday but never made it due to trying to get things caught up. Moving on.

The ride down on Friday was unbearable, and by the time I got situated in my room it was most likely the most pain that I have experienced so far. The pain went from my bottom left side to the top of my left shoulder blade. It took 90mg of IV morphine, laudanum, and Oxycontin to get rid of the pain. After they got the pain under control, which took until about midnight, they got me started on the chemo. The first day went well as usual, but the second day has been rough unlike the first round. I pray that the third is no worse than the second, but I'll see tonight.

On a better note, this is the last dose of this round, then Monday is my rest day.After that they insert my stem cells back into me on Tuesday. And if it's anything like last time at the end of the week the pain starts, but we'll see.

They did an MRI on me when I got here and seem to think that the pain was caused by the deterioration in my spine, probably due to the chemo, certainly not what you want to hear. But still waiting to see what my bHCG marker is to tell whether its the cancer or not, but we'll see.

Well obviously the homestead in on hold once again but we did get the chicken coop almost completely done thanks to Bob a brother up here and my Dad.








Sorry about the pictures, just learning how to do it, but it gives you the general idea of whats going on. Lord willing, talk soon,


JMHJ

"Another round for the house please"

I had another marker test done on Monday and received the results on Wed. which is when I had my follow-up appointment with my stem-cell doctor. The bHCG went from 7 to 23. This could just be what they call a "yo-yo" effect, or it could be growing, obviously. Hard to say, but either way its in the Lords hand.

So the options that I have is to do one more round or wait a month to six months to see what transpires. The doctors suggestion is to hit it while its down and kill anything that may be left. Whereas dealing with this for almost two years now, I agree. But accordingly, I will be praying for direction in this matter.

As most of you know, I hit this cancer hard naturally in the beginning before the first treatment, and even harder after the first but before the second to no avail. Then continued with about six more cycles of chemo over the past year, which towards the end seemed to feed the cancer rather then kill it. That's why I agree with the doctor. But as I said earlier, its in the Lords hand.

Their suppose to try to get me in in the next two weeks. While I feel pretty well Ill be trying to get our fall planting in. Our spring planting didn't do so well since I was so sick most of the summer.

The farm is slowly growing and coming together, so right now were farther than some, but not as far as others, as is life. Chickens should be laying in a week or so, and Lord willing the plan, (depending on health) is to get some sheep and a horse. Til next time,


JMHJ

Report on Numbers

I received a report of my marker numbers yesterday from my last dose of chemo, which you may or may not be aware was stem cell recovery. The AFP was right on at 2.8, while the bHCG was barely high at 7 with normal being between 3-5. I haven't seen numbers like this since July 2007 my very first round of chemo. You can imagine my surprise, especially since my bHCG was up to 7700 the first day I arrived at UMCC and was starting to cough up blood.

Now I am not so deceived as to think that this struggle is over by any means, but, at this time I would like to thank my God, the one true God, Creator of the heavens and the earth, for the brothers and fellow believers that have prayed their prayers regarding this affliction of mine. Even if this is but an intermission, I praise the Lord to be back on my feet. Til next time,


JMHJ

Back Home

I was finally released on Friday around 3:00. It was so good to be home I decided to take the weekend and just relax with my wife. Because of the transplant I pretty much cannot do anything but relax, but it was refreshing to observe the sabbath in my own house with my wife, Praise the Lord!

Well my numbers are slowly going up, their taking a little longer than they normally would have because of the extensive amounts of chemo that I had previosly gone through before the stemcell transplant, but none the less are creeping their way back up. The white blood cells are at 5.5, and the platelets are in the 20's. Not that these are the only two, but are the more important that the wbc keep the infections down, and the platelets keep you from bleeding out. I go in on Wed. for another cbc (complete blood count) to find out what my numbers are then. Today when they did the cbc they also took blood for my tumor markers. This has not been done since before I went in for the stemcell. I pray for increase from the Lord.

If the Lord wills I will post again on Wed. after I get my counts and give an update on how things are going. Talk soon,


JMHJ

Another sabbath day from the Lord

Well the Lord has seen it fit to deliver another sabbath to me. Of course I would have rather have celebrated it somewhere other than in a hospital bed, but am thankful to say the least. It's obvious that your not allowed to have open flames in the hospital, so for the candle we use a night light that plugs in the wall.

I actually had a few visitor's stop by, mom, dad, aunt and a friend of my cousin. The family all left around 6:30 and headed home. Of course my wife was here, but I think that goes without saying.

So the good news is that my mouth is finally starting to heal. There were blisters and abbesses in my cheeks which made it next to impossible to chew and swallow. My wbc(white blood cells) count is finally going up, it's up to 0.3, and the platelets made it to 25. The platelets were becoming a problem because my body was killing them as fast as they were putting them in my body. So they gave me a steroid to counteract this problem. All in all I feel well today, and should continue to do better as my counts go up. I'll keep everyone posted.


til' then
JMHJ

Second week of stem cell

Well I'm on the 13th day of stem cell treatment. I had a minor staff infection, which has been taken care of with the antibiotics. I got 2 bags of blood today plus platelets along with the antibiotics. My numbers finally plateaued yesterday and today are starting to go back up, slowly. Lord willing I'll be headed back home the middle of next week. As I feel better I will be posting more.


Jim

Introduction

We have a small homestead here in Heidlersburg Penn. I'll be adding to this as much as the Lord provides strength for me to do. We only have about an acre and a half but its surprising how self-sufficient you can become on what the Lord gives you. So far we have a small garden and a small poultry farm. We get together on Saturday for fellowship and sermons. I will be posting pictures and writings as the Lord allows. Due to health concerns it's hard sometimes, but will keep everyone updated.