Nevada Bob Takes His Cancer Fight to Tijuana (Part 3)

Reflecting. Photo: Gary Firstenberg

This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Nevada Bob Gordon's 50 Years with the Wrong Woman. This is a continuation from Part 2 regarding Nevada Bob's "ailment," his euphemism for the C-word. You can read Part 2 Here.

With a growing family and the American doctors essentially giving up hope, Bob Gordon decided to give "alternative medicine" a try. What follows is not intended as medical advice; it is simply the path Nevada Bob followed. 

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I was not informed right away that I could be dead in six months. My tumor was, in fact, malignant. When Carol had learned that the test had revealed I had cancer, she met with her girlfriend Darlene Marley. Darlene told me that Carol was sitting in our car with all of our children, including the baby, and said to Darlene, “What am I going to do with all these kids if Bob dies?”

Carol was never one to exhibit emotional displays, but in that moment she looked pretty forlorn. The tears in her eyes reflected her extreme concern. In front of her good friend Darlene Marley, she put her head down on the dashboard and cried, again saying, “What am I going to do with all these kids if Bob dies?”

One of the days before I was released, a younger doctor came into my room and informed me that he was going to give me cobalt treatments after a few weeks of recuperation. He knew as well as many of the hospital personnel that my wife had just delivered baby number five. It was a sad state of a airs for a mother with five young children and a 34-year-old husband that could die. I asked the doctor if the cobalt treatment would cure me. He stood up, started to cry, and said I would probably die. He then left the room, but that incident got my attention.

I went into a very depressed state. I thought God was getting even with me and that I deserved to die. Besides giving you an artificial high, Demerol can heighten anxiety as well. I concluded my future was over.

One afternoon late into my hospital stay, I was visited by my wife and my four-year-old son Daniel. Daniel made the most important declaration that I ever heard in my life. He looked a little bit nervous, and said to me, “Hi Dad, when are you coming home?”

Immediately, I said to myself and to him, “I’m coming home in a few days!”

 
That was when my whole outlook changed and I said to myself, “By God I’m going to beat this thing one way or another!”

 
The first step was to get a second opinion. We put my two oldest girls in Carol’s sister’s care. Gina went to my sister and her husband. Daniel, Carol, and new baby Keith went with me to my parents’ home.

I took my paperwork to the University of Washington Medical Center. After a few days in Seattle, I was called in for a conference. Beforehand I was told I could bring my wife but no other family members, which made it sound ominous. I met with the doctor, who was accompanied by an intern, a young doctor in training. Carol had no desire to go and hear the news, so it was just me. While there, I was informed they were intending to do a series of three operations. The first operation was to be

an investigatory look at my lymph glands. The second to look at my lungs.

Then they told me they were going to take out my prostate gland in the third operation. The doctor asked me if I knew what that meant. When I said I didn’t know, the doctor explained that I would no longer be able to have sex. When he told me that, the intern looked at me to see how I would react.

I nodded my head. “Thank you for your analysis.” That look I received from the intern decided my position. These characters weren’t going to touch me.

After that disconcerting appointment I went to the records department and asked for my medical records. I was told I couldn’t have them. I demanded my records and told the clerk I would not leave without them. I was told by this clerk that the papers were only to be reviewed by doctors.

“Oh, but I can have them, and I want them,” I said to her. “I’m going to stay here until I get these papers. I will sleep on this couch you have right here if necessary. I am not leaving without those medical records.”

Photo by DAVID NIETO on Unsplash

She finally responded to that, went into the proper department and brought out the records. She then handed me paperwork that I had to sign off on indicating where I was going with the papers. I wrote Dr. Contreras, Tijuana, Mexico. The clerk smiled when she saw what I wrote for their destination, as if to say, you ignorant idiot. I was still holding out hope for my third option: laetrile.
 

There were a couple annoyances about my condition that, while not life threatening, certainly changed my day-to-day routine. One of these is that when the urge to urinate hit me I only had about a minute until I burst. As a result, if I drove anywhere, I would carry a can in the car, just to be sure that I was going to be okay in case I burst in the middle of nowhere.

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The Contreras clinic was a clean facility. There were several so-called clinics located in Tijuana that were ramshackle looking. By way of contrast, the Contreras clinic was located on Tijuana Beach. It appeared to be a clean building that very well could provide a possible cure for my situation....

TO BE CONTINUED

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