Bone marrow cleansing
An example

Statistics does not concern Nils André Myhre, a forty year-old retailer and father of five from Stord Island in western Norway. He is one of the patients who have participated in the experimental treatment at the Radium Hospital.

During the winter of 1989 he developed a dry cough that just would not stop. He was then sent to Haukeland Hospital in Bergen were X-rays showed a large shadow behind his lungs. He was diagnosed as having lymph cancer.

"Naturally, this came as quite a shock to me. And although I did not lose courage and decided to fight it as best I could, the future did seem bleak at the time," says Myhre.

He then embarked on an unpleasant treatment including radiation and large doses of drugs. Syringes of yellow, pink and mauve liquids were injected into his body, making him feel nauseated and dizzy. His hair fell off. He had to stay in isolation. All to no avail. The disease did not loosen its grip.

"At one point, just about the time they started talking about putting me through a new experimental cure at the Norwegian Radium Hospital, I had almost given up. But at Haukeland Hospital I met a man who had been through a similar treatment in a hospital in Heidelberg, Germany. He was now free of symptoms, and I agreed to try this new treatment," recalls Mr Myhre.

Almost to the day six months after his disease had been diagnosed, the doctors at the Norwegian Radium Hospital removed almost two pints of Nils André Myhre´s bone marrow from his breast and hip bones. He was then put through five days of intensive radiation, and the cleansed bone marrow was reinfused.

Four days of tense expectation followed, while the members of the Myhre family held their breath, waiting for the reinfused bone marrow to start producing white blood cells.

"They were four dreadful days. Nothing happened the first day. Nor the second. Not even the third. But, finally, on the fourth day the doctors told me that my bones had started producing white blood cells again.", says Mr. Myhre, smiling. Today, nearly three years after he was in isolation at the Radium Hospital the father of five is without any symtoms of cancer.