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Alternative Cancer Treatment Works for Billy Best

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(page 2 of 6)

"Good luck," he says.

"Thank you so much," she says. "See you next week!"

_________________

A decade ago, Billy was on a different mission. On October 26, 1994, the 16-year-old cancer patient pulled his backpack out from under his bed and tucked his skateboard under his arm. His father was in the basement and his mother was not home. Quietly, he walked out the door of his family's home in Norwell, Massachusetts, hopped onto his skateboard, and skated away.

Since July of that year, Billy had been treated for Hodgkin's disease at the famed Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Each week, he received chemotherapy. Each week, he became sicker, weaker. To his mind, this was not the way to be healed. Like a prisoner waiting for the right moment to break away, Billy began selling some of his belongings: a video here, a stereo there, skateboard parts. Whatever he thought his friends might want to buy, he sold. Soon he had several hundred dollars. And a plan.

Billy knew he was dying. His aunt Judy had recently died of breast cancer. He had watched her go through the same treatments, get just as sick, grow just as weak, and then she died. So he thought that if he could get to California, where he once lived with his parents, he'd be happy. He thought that if he could watch the sun set and then go to sleep, what could be better than that? That was how he pictured himself dying. So he kept this backpack under his bed. He had four pairs of shoes in there. Of course, he would take his skateboard, the heart of his life. But he thought he might end up having to skateboard across the country, which made him think he would need a lot of shoes. He kept the money hidden. Maybe he had enough for a bus ticket to California. He wasn't sure.

That October morning, he got to the bus station in Boston and found he didn't have enough money for California, so instead he bought a one-way ticket to Lake Charles, Louisiana. He thought it sounded like it would be a pretty place. Once on the bus, a feeling of intense peace came over him, as if nothing could touch him now. He was safe. No more treatments. No more being sick. He stashed his skateboard overhead, put on his headphones, sat back in the seat, and let the music roll.

When the bus arrived in Lake Charles, Billy saw it was a big industrial place, not what he'd expected. So for another 20 bucks, he bought a ticket to Houston. That seemed like a good place--at least it was warm. Once there, he put his stuff into a bus-station locker and took off on his board. Soon he met some kids, skating. He told them he'd fought with his parents and run away. That's pretty much what he told everyone, even though it hurt him to say it. He loved his parents and already missed them and his sister, Jenny. But even that couldn't change what he'd been through. He had begged not to continue the treatments, but his parents were firm: No, you have to do what the doctors say because it's the best thing there is. Your only chance is to do what they say. So it wasn't any use talking to them. They didn't understand. He just wanted to be free, to skate, to die without feeling so sick.

Every day in Houston he felt stronger. The boys he met had a kind of a clubhouse in a storage locker they had broken into. They had outfitted it with some old furniture plucked from a trash bin, and, since there wasn't any electricity, they used candles for light. They let him sleep there. During the day they skated all over Houston. At night he often went home with one or another of them and they fed him. A week went by. One night, they were over at a boy named Pat's house. Pat's father was in the living room, watching TV. Suddenly he shouted, "Hey, you guys, get in here. Billy's on television!" There was Billy's mom on the screen, crying and saying, "Billy, just call us!"