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"Making a House Call" By Sharon Tetrault Orange Coast Magazine, January 2000  In his twelve years in private practice as an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. James Caillouette has performed thousands of hip replacement, knee and shoulder surgeries. So when his 15-year-old son, Britton, complained of a sore left knee last year, he wasn't too concerned. His son rowed and ran everyday so Dr. Caillouette figured it was most likely just a stress fracture. He advised his son to curtail exercise for a few weeks and take aspirin. But when the pain persisted three weeks later, Dr. Caillouette took an unusual step and ordered an MRI done on Britton's leg. "It would have been considered overkill to recommend an MRI to a patient at that point but I knew it was the fastest and most accurate way to determine the problem," says Dr. Caillouette, whose practice is in Newport Beach. As Britton lay on the scanner and the images started coming out, Dr. Caillouette was shocked at what he saw. He'd expected a stress fracture at worst but instead stared at the image of a five-inch tumor consuming his son's femur. He instinctively knew that it was an osteosarcoma tumor, which hits young people in the second decade of life and has a 65 to 75 percent survival rate. Dr. Caillouette knew the standard treatment: high doses of chemotherapy, followed by an artificial knee replacement. But while he started Britton on a 15-week session of chemotherapy, he also turned his thinking to an alternative to knee-replacement surgery. "I knew that a metallic prosthesis in a growing young boy would almost certainly fail." Expanding on traditional medical thinking was nothing new to Dr. Caillouette. In the late 80's, he and fellow physician, Dr. Robert Klapper, created and advanced system of tools for hip and joint replacement surgeries. Using ultrasonic energy instead of the hammer and chisel, the tools turn the cement that holds a prosthesis in place into a soft, buttery state and makes its removal easier. And for the last four years, Dr. Caillouette has spearheaded an international design team that has developed a longer-lasting hip prosthesis. This March, the product will be introduced to the market. Now with his son facing the biggest challenge of his young life, Dr. Caillouette sought to apply this same innovative thinking. He talked to specialists around the world about options to removing the femur bone. At the same time his wife of 18 years, Dori, began researching nutrition, yoga, and homeopathic healing. They had a meditation expert come to the house once a week to work with Britton on deep breathing and imaging, during which he would visualize healthy cells rushing to the tumor to heal it. He also learned to lower his brain waves and enter into the delta state, which helped him to get through arduous medical procedures and chemotherapy. When he underwent his PET scan, Britton dropped into a delta rhythm and was able to lie perfectly still on the scanner for two hours. In a show of support, the entire family changed their diet to macrobiotics, a whole-foods diet consisting mostly of grains, sea plants and vegetables. They eliminated all animal products except for fish from their diet and bought only organic food. They also loaded up on nutritional supplements such as Co-enzyme Q and antioxidants. "I believe that Britton's good nutrition helped him to recover quicker from the chemotherapy," says Dr. Caillouette, who also has a 13-year-old daughter, an 11-year-old son, and a 9-year old son. Just three and a half weeks before Britton was scheduled for knee replacement surgery, Dr. Caillouette found a doctor at the University of Washington who could perform an alternative surgery. Britton was one of the few candidates to qualify medically for the procedure, in which the end of his femur in the knee joint was preserved and a bone graft was used to replace the portion of the removed femur. It's been over a year and now that is son's cancer is in remission, Dr. Caillouette is turning his attention to incorporating his experiences with non-traditional therapy into his practice. "I am trained in Western medicine and have the utmost faith in it, but I feel that we need to open our minds to the other avenues of healing. We can be great technical doctors but we can be even better if we make a concerted effort to boost the nutritional and mental stability of our patients." © Copyright 2000 Orange Coast Magazine |
