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77 °F Forecast | Road Cams Sunday, August 15, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Prime Times Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Rogue Valley's Finest EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend July 18, 2004 Cooper Man returning home after treatment fails By JOHN DARLING for the Mail Tribune Stricken with liver failure and pneumonia — and expected to live only a few more weeks — Dale Cooper is being flown home Tuesday to Medford from Buenos Aires by his family, breaking off an exotic cancer vaccine treatment that cost them $140,000. Cooper, 46, a carpet installer with New Trend Mill Outlet of Medford, flew in February to Argentina for the injections — a radical new therapy not yet legal in the United States. Patients receive a vaccine made from their own blood and tumor cells, which have been put together to educate the blood’s dendritic cells on how to attack cancer. Cooper was in stage IV, the most advanced stage of cancer, when he went for the treatments. "We thought the treatment would work, but his liver started to fail, then pneumonia in both lungs, so we stopped life support and just hope he’s strong enough to make it home," said Cooper’s sister, Rhonda Lee of Medford. "He’s stable now, and I think we’re going to make it to the airport OK." Advertisement Lee, a nursing student at Rogue Community College, has been at Regina Mater, a university hospital in Buenos Aires, for the past 10 days, helping Cooper’s mother in round-the-clock care, she said in a phone interview from there. Stricken with esophageal cancer, Cooper, a light smoker all his life, last summer underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment, with removal of half his stomach and most of his esophagus in an 11-hour surgery, Lee said. He was also given two weeks to live at that time, she said. Cooper, a Medford native, and family members have deeply mortgaged their homes, made extensive use of credit cards and appealed for donations in newspaper ads, Lee said. Cooper’s mother, Carol Lackey of Talent, owner of Rondel Kennels in Phoenix, also cashed in a portion of her retirement. She has spent the last six months taking care of her son in Buenos Aires. "We’re strapped," Lee said, noting that further donations are welcome at the Dale Cooper Cancer Fund account, Umpqua Bank, 220 E. 10th St., Medford, OR 97501. "The family wants to bring him home to say goodbye to his daughter, Kari (Cooper of Medford), and his granddaughter Jona, and are ready to let him pass away," said Lisa Hislebeard of Jacksonville, a lifelong friend of the family. She attended Oak Grove Elementary School with Cooper and his sister and now works at Rondel Kennels. "He was a hell of a hard worker," said his boss, Bill Baum of New Trend. "And when you sent him out on a job, you knew you could depend on him to do it right. We had a little jug here for donations, but I don’t think it’s helped much." Cooper left his work more than a year ago. Hislebeard, who is coordinating the family’s affairs here and is in daily phone contact with Lee and Lackey at the clinic, said: "It’s been kind of a nightmare for Carol, with culture shock, a foreign language and no support community. She doesn’t want him to die there. Dale doesn’t either. He’s tired of fighting and wants to die in his own country." Hislebeard and family members have researched arrangements for bringing Cooper home under medical care but found an air-evac jet would charge $500,000, while transit on a commercial flight with an emergency medical technician and a nurse would cost $45,000, she said. Such prohibitive costs left only one option — stabilizing Cooper enough for the "grueling" two- day flight, with 20 hours of it airborne. Several Rogue Valley cancer patients, including high schooler Whitney Chatfield and builder Larry Medinger, both of Ashland, and nurse Laurie Shonerd of Phoenix, have reported success with the cancer vaccine. Two other patients from Ashland, however, said it has not worked for them. John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected]. Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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