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Name
Irving C. Faust, Jr.
Born
Oskaloosa, Iowa, July 18,1928
Home
Kingston Springs, TN
Diagnosis
Dry MD
Eyes Affected
both
Eye Color
brown
Age at Diagnosis
59
Visual Acuity
20/100 left, and 20/80 right
Treatment
No treatment available from traditional western medical wisdom.
Have had treatments through Integrated Visual Healing. This is an
alternative treatment approach.
Prognosis or Current State of
Vision
I received some benefit from the alternative treatments at IVH,
but lost ground when I developed prostate cancer and got very
involved in alternative treatments and did not have time to
continue working with the IVH program. Hopefully, I can regain much
of that lost ground in the near future when I can get back to
utilizing the IVH program.
Family History
I had one first cousin, once removed, who had MD, I think it was
dry, but am not sure. She lost almost all of her central vision by
the time of her death when she was in her late 80's.
Impact on My Life
With correction I am able to read standard print, but am more
comfortable with large print. I have had to give up my hobby of
counted cross stitch, but have substituted latch-hook rug making
which is a much larger format. I have recently had to give up most
driving. I could continue driving with bioptic lenses, but find the
cost of these prohibitive.
Positive Effects
MD and cancer have taught me to take one day at a time, to find
ways of reducing stress in my life, to add as much humor as
possible (or as my family and friends can tolerate from me). In
general this has taught me to maintain a positive attitude towards
life, in as much as possible.
Working
I am retired and have been for a number of years. I have been
trained as a master's degree social worker, and worked in the field
of child welfare for a number of years. Eventually I became a
faculty member at the University of Tennessee College of Social
Work. I particularly enjoyed working as a field instructor of both
first and second year students in the Master's Degree Program. I
also taught courses in Casework, Human Behavior in the Social
Environment, Family Therapy, and School Social Work
More About Me
I have been married to the same lovely woman, Naomi, for the past
48+ years, and look forward to many more years with her. In
October, 2000, I was officially diagnosed with prostate cancer,
although I had been pretty certain for several years that I had it.
I could not get doctors to talk about alternative treatments and
kept rejecting their traditional western medical wisdom, on the
basis of the probable side effects. I finally found the treatment
program I was interested in and let them go ahead and do the biopsy
to make it official. My PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) was 1004
with a Gleason Score of aggressiveness of 9 on a scale that put 10
as the most aggressive. Six weeks later I arrived at the Advanced
Alternatives Cancer Center. The first thing they did was check my
PSA and it had risen to 1516. I have had a rocky 15 months since
then, but am now in remission with a PSA of 2 in my most recent
test this month (February, 2002).
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