The locations rotate among various restaurants in the Houston Medical Center area. 

Tell your ProtonPal friends about Joe's House to find housing in the Medical Center area. This link is also on the Pals website and on the MD Anderson website. 

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(Updated August 2013)

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Everyday and today especially I'm thankful for your interest and support. I hope you are doing well this holiday and wish you low PSAs and continued good health for many years.
For what started as my mailing list in the "gown room" to grow and become ProtonPals, a group recognized by MD Anderson as key to patient support; for this I want to acknowledge the many early contributors. In the organization starting with Peter Taaffe, Buddy Zeagler and Bob Jernigan who were in the original organization meeting. Rich McMillan who's friendship and interest was essential in early meetings and Ban Capron who was the originator of "My Story" and the "One Pagers" is really the co-founder and my close partner providing support to me, the organization and web page design. Drew Cox makes every Wednesday night dinner possible as well being the originator of the "ProtonPals Children's Toy and Activity Fund."  Dave Stevens who agreed to join the board and give of his expertise in his own journey of his personal experience with the therapy and leuprolide (Lupron) and his vast background now more recently in prostate cancer journal research which he added to his many years of law and tax practice.
Please add these men to your Thanksgiving meditations and prayers and even if you've not received direct benefit from the ProtonPals know that many men and women have.
Of course being an all volunteer organization with no financial ties to MD Anderson, we depend on your donations and give thanks for your contributions over the years. Our silent partner, ExxonMobil Foundation's Volunteer Involvement Program (VIP). has been a mainstay contributor for five years matching my volunteer hours with mini-grants to the ProtonPals charity, and not to be forgotten are the significant and constant contributors who keep this outfit. 

As I write this in Louisiana I'll drop back to my native dialect and say to you, Merci Beaucoup!

  

David Tabatsky is co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Cancer Book, an author and book consultant. David was the main author for the Chicken Soup book - he reviewed the over 2,000 submissions and mentored the 101 selected contributors to help craft their stories.
Expressive writing can be a meaningful coping tool to improve mental and physical quality of life for the 11 million Americans who have or had cancer. Ongoing research has shown writing may improve health, both psychologically and physically.

You can learn more about this course sponsored by Genentech by reading more at this web site.
Also there is an ongoing program that you may be interested in also. Write for Life

Remember if you write a story about your experience with proton therapy please give ProtonPals a chance to publish it in our newsletter or on our website. Contact me at jelandry@protonpals.net

Photo from the following article Writing about illness can help cancer patients feel better.

My mug shot in our garden as I prepared to join the 16,000 volunteers who work at MD Anderson? One of the things I noticed on my first trip to diagnostic center (Mays Clinic) about 7 years ago was how smoothly things seemed to flow as the nurses and phlebotomist were sampling hundreds of patients. The volunteers seemed to make things flow smoothly from the waiting room to the individual cubicles where fluids were drawn for diagnostic work. Not only was I impressed with that but I was sobered thinking about the sheer number of patients there and each one had cancer. These samples are all analyzed by the MD Anderson laboratory and one day I'll have to get a tour of the to see how that happens and they process all those tubes and vials of fluids.

Must be that my stamina was improved because two and a half months ago I volunteered for yet another job in addition to ProtonPals. I took the plunge and signed up for the training as a full fledged volunteer. The time line was a little over 2 months to schedule and attend two training classes, to be interviewed and to have my background check. Finally after being awarded the "blue" jacket I was assigned to John Barna-Lloyd as my mentor and trainer. I was to shadow him for as long as I thought it took to feel ready to handle the job in assisting the doctors in their clinics.
 
So far over the last 5 weeks I've worked Stephen Frank"s clinic in the Mays ACD Building on Monday mornings and Dr. Andrew Lee's follow up clinics. By far the most technically challenging job is in Dr. Frank's clinic where John Barna-Lloyd takes on the responsibility of explaining to new patients what's going to happen and what the doctor is going to do to them.  Dr. Lee's follow up clinic has given me the opportunity to see some personal friends who were there for a check up but I didn't have the time to talk with them very much. All were doing very well although two of my Pals were still in their leuprolide (Lupron) shot appointments.

 

Dr. Andrew K. Lee, my doctor at the MD Anderson Proton Center, says we need a grass roots effort to counter the belief that proton therapy is more expensive and no more effective than Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) and other modes of treatment of prostate cancer treatment are "just as good."
One step we chose to start this grass roots effort was to join Bob Marckini, Debra Hickey and their team in countering the recent attack on proton therapy by getting the truth out.They are going to the patients that were treated. Out of the nearly 7000 BOB members representing over half of the patients treated for PCa, over 3200 have completed a survey documenting their proton experience; and thanks to you this includes many ProtonPals.

The larger our response, the greater will be the credibility of this patient advocate network to which we belong, and the more attention we will receive in the media when the report is published. 

I support Bob Marckini by paraphrasing his statement, "Taking this survey is one of the most important things you can do as a ProtonPal member."
Results will be published widely, starting with a paper to be presented at the NPC 2014 (National Association Protons meeting in Washington in early April of 2014. This will be used to set the record straight on proton therapy for prostate cancer.

Click here to take the survey online (recommended).

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact Becky Campbell at the Proton BOB data center, BCampbell@protonbob.com or jelandry@protonpals.net. 

I know at times I've said to my doctor, "why not give me that broad spectrum antibiotic that knocked out my prostatitis the last time?" Why single me out as the one to not proliferate the use of antibiotics that end up producting resistant bugs. Dave Stevens just called my attention to an excellent and broad article about life before and after antibiotics.  

Infection control in a hospital is one of the very important lines of defense like MD Anderson where immunity maybe compromised. My daughter Jacqueline is director of infection control at an Adventist Health System (same family as Loma Linda) hospital in Florida and she keeps us informed and sobered of the hospital bourne infections that come her way and how they strive so hard at educating the staff, disinfecting the rooms, checking new patients before admitting them to the general hospital population.

 Read More about Life without Antibiotics

 

Chemo brain formally known as cognitive dysfunction, is a symptom reported by many cancer patients. Personally I hear it from patients who have the hair falling nnnnn stuff that are infused on a daily basis.  But prostate cancer patients do get cognitive dysfunction from taking Lupron® and other drugs to fight intermediate and high risk prostate cancer, as well has having low testosterone levels caused by many things including treatment with Lupronthe leuprolide or by aging and hypogonadism.  

The article goes on to say that "not many treatments for chemobrain currently exist", although some patients may find relief from stimulants such as Ritalin® commonly used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Provigil® , Nuvigil ® used to treat "Excessive Daytime Sleepiness Disorder."

To get more details about the article please read on at the MD Anderson site and to get personal help please see your treating physician.

About the ProtonPals Organization
Thanks for subscribing to the newsletter and using the ProtonPals website. We won't sell or give your addresses to anyone. You'll receive one or at most two mailings a month from us. If you're a new subscriber you may want to note that the past newsletters are archived back to May 2009. Newsletter Archives

We're a group who chose proton beam therapy to cure our cancer and were treated at University of Texas MD Anderson Proton Therapy Center in Houston, Texas. The "Pals" formed a network in order to:

Stay up to date with treatment cure results

Provide support to others and Center activities

Be informed on any side- effects

Promote proton radiation since it's widely regarded to have a significant advantage over conventional x-rays.

Attract and nurture more Pals who support our cause, patient-to-patient and friend-to-friend