Quackery. That’s how Terri Dilts’ former oncologist described the breast cancer treatment she wanted to receive.
So she left Swedish Hospital for Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center. At that Renton center, using high doses of vitamin C to fight cancer isn’t quackery. It’s just one tool in the center’s toolbox.
Dilts, 47, of Lake Forest Park, loves that the center so eagerly embraces vitamin C and other naturopathic remedies, in addition to more conventional treatments.
“I love the approach they take toward cancer,” she says. “Both the naturopathic and traditional medicinal approach. Those two in conjunction are a perfect match, and for a standard hospital to poo-poo it and call it quackery is egotistical and wrong.”
When it opened in 1996 on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center became the first medical center in the region where oncologists work alongside naturopathic physicians and other complementary-care providers.
Even today, the Renton center stands largely alone.
“We’re really the only cancer treatment center that looks at cancer this way,” says Carrie Wallin, marketing director.
Many cancer treatment centers refer patients to acupuncturists or counseling, Wallin says. She says the difference at Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center is that patients don’t have to leave the center to see acupuncturists or counselors.
Staff at the Renton center includes medical oncologists, naturopathic oncologists, a Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist practitioner and a mind-body medicine therapist.
Each patient decides which of these services he or she would like to employ in fighting his or her particular type of cancer.
Jerry Klika, practice administrator for the Renton center, calls the variety of services part of the center’s “integrated approach to cancer treatment.”
“We’re not treating cancer, we’re treating the whole person with cancer,” he says.
And that’s what he says draws patients to the center.
“They know there’s more involved than just giving me chemotherapy,” he says.
Not that patients don’t receive chemotherapy at Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center. On any given day, 20 to 30 patients receive the cancer-killing drug at the center.
To minimize side effects, physicians at the center give infusions of the drug in fractionated doses. That means patients receive the drug more often, but in lower doses than standard chemotherapy treatments.
Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center is part of Cancer Treatment Centers of America and its national network of facilities in places including Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Tulsa.
Seattle’s center moved to Renton from Capitol Hill on Dec. 22. The move was motivated by a need for more space and a more convenient location. The new 12,300 square-foot building is 50 percent larger than the Seattle building.
Dilts moved south with the center, as did most of Klika’s patients. Dilts visits the Renton office twice a week. Mondays for vitamin C and a targeted breast cancer monoclonal antibody and Thursdays for another dose of vitamin C. She also receives a bone strengthener at the center once every three months.
At home, Dilts takes a hormone suppressor every night — and a variety of supplements all day long. She also receives treatment from an Edmonds acupuncturist once a month.
This arsenal of treatment keeps Dilts’ breast cancer in check.
Dilts has had breast cancer for about five years and will live with the disease the rest of her life. That’s because after five years of absence, her breast cancer came back in 2005 — not in her breasts but on several spots on her spine, hip and skull. A second round of radiation and chemotherapy shrank the cancer, but the stage-four disease is incurable.
Dilts receives her IV treatment at Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center in the group room, or the Tiki Bar, as reads the wood sign at the entrance. A circular table with a puzzle in the works sits in the middle of the room.
Dilts doesn’t participate in any of the center’s counseling sessions. But she says hanging out in the group room twice a week is a “kind of therapy.”
“I get used to seeing the faces,” she says.
Those faces belong to the 50 to 60 adults treated at the center each day. Patients come from about 25 states, Klika says.
Doctors at the center treat adults with a variety of cancers. Children are not treated at the center.
Most patients choose to receive their treatment in the Tiki Bar, but treatment is also available in private and semi-private rooms with curtains and beds.
Each patient at Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center has a customized treatment plan. But each patient is also treated according to the Mother Standard of care.
“We treat every patient as if they were our own mother,” Klika explains.
That standard was created by Dick Stephenson, founder of Cancer Treatment Centers of America. He vowed no other cancer patient would receive the appalling treatment his mother received.
The cancer patients at Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center have various stages of the disease. Some, like Dilts, seek treatment at the Renton center after other cancer centers turn them away.
“When other centers say, ‘There’s nothing more we can do, go home and prepare yourself,’ we say, ‘Nowhere on your body is there an expiration date. We’re going to treat you,’” Klika says.
That’s because at Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center, the focus is on hope.
That focus was rejected by Dilts’ former oncologist.
She told that doctor she was receiving her vitamin C at the Renton center. He told her the center was simply selling hope.
Dilts’ response?
“I just said I’m buying.”
AN OPEN HOUSE
Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center is at 900 S.W. 16th St., Suite 100, Renton. The center is hosting an open house Feb. 19 at 4:30 p.m. For more information, call 206.292.2277 or visit www.seattle cancerwellness.com
