Patient Stories Archives

My Self-Advocacy Journey With Ultra High-Risk Multiple Myeloma

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My Self Advocacy Journey with Ultra High-Risk Multiple Myeloma from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Multiple myeloma patient Lori shares her journey to diagnosis and treatment. Watch as she explains the varied symptoms that she experienced, the benefits of a second opinion and clinical trials, and her  advice to other patients.

Related Resources:

How to Thrive and Set Myeloma Treatment Goals

 Expert Advice for Newly Diagnosed Myeloma Patients

 Multiple Myeloma Danielle’s Clinical Trial Profile

Transcript:

Lori:

My name is Lori, I’m from Portland, Oregon. I was diagnosed at age 60 in June 2019 with ultra high-risk multiple myeloma. The road to my diagnosis was long and regrettably all too common.

I have always been very healthy and active. I believe my healthy history clouded my doctor’s ability to connect my symptoms to anything serious.

My journey started with chronic fatigue and needing extra sleep. Then came horrible headaches followed by shoulder and back pain, frequent infections that didn’t clear with antibiotics, and severe nose bleeds. 

In May 2019, I had my annual exam that included a blood draw. I later learned I was tested for diabetes and cholesterol but none of the basic blood panels that flag abnormal values. I went into my exam with my laundry list of issues, but was given a clean bill of health.

Four weeks after this exam I was traveling in Kenya on a safari.  I felt very sick during the trip, but I assumed I had picked up something on the long flight.  When I returned  home I could barely get out of bed. I collapsed in the middle of a dinner with some doctor friends who insisted I go to the ER where they held me overnight to perform additional testing. They discovered severe anemia and that my basic blood panels hadn’t been ordered for a number of years. I continued to think it was some odd African bug until the doctors arrived the next day to share the suspected diagnosis of multiple myeloma. I was in shock and very afraid.

I sought a second opinion and I was extremely fortunate to begin my treatment at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. In July 2019, I was started on KRD induction therapy. Our journey was further rocked when our insurance declined coverage for carfilzomib, which was nearly $20,000 for two infusions each week. The insurer insisted I fail on the standard treatment before I could be approved.  I knew from reading how essential the first line of therapy is.  With Seattle Cancer Care Alliance’s help, I was finally approved due to my high-risk status. However, it took months to finally receive approval, and I had to take care of stressful, expensive bills while also completing my treatment.

Treatment was exhausting and required me to drive 3 hours each way each week from Portland to Seattle.  We needed to spend at least one night each week in a hotel. By October 2019, a bone marrow biopsy analysis showed no myeloma cells. I was reminded of the spotty nature of myeloma and the limits of biopsy testing, but I was extremely encouraged. 

At diagnosis, I was given a 20 percent chance of a 5-year survival. I am now 3 years post-diagnosis, and I am in remission.

Some of the things I have learned during my multiple myeloma journey are:

  • Ask your primary care doctor what tests have been ordered and request a comprehensive blood panel if you suspect something is wrong and not being adequately addressed.
  • Seek a second opinion at a cancer center that combines patient treatment and research. 
  • Clinical trials and new treatment combinations can be effective even for high-risk disease. 
  • Work with your doctors to get insurance approval for the protocols they recommend.
  • Empower yourself by learning about treatment options and new therapies.  
  • Be encouraged that there are so many positive advancements happening in multiple myeloma.

These actions are key to staying on your path to empowerment.

My Polycythemia Vera Journey to Empowerment

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My Polycythemia Vera Journey to Empowerment from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Myeloproliferative neoplasm patient Mark shares his journey to patient empowerment. Watch as he discusses symptoms that eventually pieced together his polycythemia vera diagnosis, helpful support resources, activities that have aided him  during treatment, and his advice to help other patients.

See More from Best MPN Care No Matter Where You Live

Related Resources:

How Can MPN Patients Become More Proactive in Their Care?

 What Are the Unmet Needs in Access to MPN Care?

 MPN Caregivers: How to Provide Support During Appointments

Transcript:

Mark:

My name is Mark, and I live in the UK. I was diagnosed with polycythemia vera (PV) in April 2021 after a long path to diagnosis that was complicated by COVID-19 restrictions.

In December 2020, I had a routine blood test that flagged elevated hematocrit. My doctor told me the laboratory would re-do the test after Christmas and not to worry. Meanwhile, I researched various causes of elevated hematocrit and began drinking (approximately) 4 liters of water per day just to rule out any dehydration.

I had the repeat blood test in January 2021, which showed elevated hematocrit again. Next, I was sent for a JAK2 test and referred to a hematologist. I was also switching roles at work and moving at the same time. The moving and medical care changes were worsened by UK-wide COVID-19 restrictions. 

I got moved and awaited the results. A month passed with no news, and I could only connect with my medical team by Internet or phone. The test results could take up to 8 weeks. Then I started experiencing some strange eye issue with blurry zig-zag shapes and itching around my ankles and general skin discomfort after showering. I also had a gray-out in one eye that was like a shutter closing over my eye for about 30 seconds. I read about elevated hematocrit and microcirculatory issues before and decided to ignore it until my appointment. 

I was still awaiting my test results in March with a consultant appointment booked for April, and my doctor decided to repeat the JAK2 test. The results came in, and I was finally diagnosed with polycythemia vera. I was simply told that I would receive phlebotomies and was given a pamphlet. I went for my initial phlebotomy, and my journey began. Around that time, I told my doctor about the vision issues. They immediately referred me to the TIA clinic to investigate mini strokes and started me on aspirin. I  had no signs of a TIA, but the symptoms could not rule out the possibility. Fortunately, the vision issues stopped after my second phlebotomy.

I found the MPNVoice website and began learning about MPNs, which proved invaluable and helped me grasp my situation. It was so helpful to find others who lived with MPNs well beyond the Google-searched life expectancy, and reading their stories gave me comfort. Physically, I noticed that I had slowed down and was feeling sorry for myself, which isolation from COVID-19 restrictions didn’t help. I decided to start volunteering, re-started some yoga, and started exercising. I experienced immediate benefits and find keeping active is now a must.  

Initially, my hematocrit level didn’t lower, and I received advice for my hematologist to be more aggressive with my blood draws. With sometimes weekly draws, my levels started dropping. It took 6 months to level out to my target hematocrit maximum. 

Upon reflection, some things that I’ve learned during my PV journey include:

  • Try not to panic about what you don’t know and can’t control – this allows you to focus on the important stuff.
  • During the testing and diagnosis stage, try not to search too much on Google – it’s not helpful!
  • Finding others who are in the same situation can make a rare illness less rare and far less scary.
  • Keep active and don’t overthink everything. If you start feeling sorry for yourself, do something about it.

These actions are key for staying on your path to empowerment.

Myeloma Patient Profile: Jeff Boero

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When Jeff Boero shares his multiple myeloma patient journey, it’s clear that self-education has been a vital part of his experience. He was first diagnosed through his primary care physician who referred him to a general oncology group in the San Francisco area. They confirmed it was multiple myeloma. It soon became clear to Jeff and his wife that he perhaps needed a second opinion, and he was connected with the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) to their multiple myeloma specialist. 

The second opinion changed the approach to Jeff’s care rather dramatically. He was quickly scheduled for a stem cell transplant and subsequent maintenance after that. As Jeff recalls, “Through UCSF, I became eligible for a CAR T-cell immunotherapy trial in 2017. That was very successful and kept me disease-free and medication-free for about 2-1/2 years. And then I relapsed and went on another maintenance program. I became eligible for another clinical trial for a bi-specific T-cell engager (BiTE) that I’m on now and am having good results.”

Jeff was almost in complete denial about his diagnosis for the first 6 months. The diagnosis threw him into a world of terminology and treatment that was completely foreign to him. That sense of his diagnosis feeling foreign also started to lead into a certain level of depression — just not knowing what it is, how is it going to be treated, what it meant to his long-term survival. Jeff remembers, “So, with the encouragement of my wife as caregiver, I became more educated as I engaged in various conversations with specialists and participated in some of the PEN webinars. It  became clearer to me about what some of the options are and what they can be. Being engaged with UCSF really opened up the treatment options. With me becoming more educated and able to speak the language of myeloma, I was starting to understand the diagnosis as it was presented by UCSF. And it led to a much richer engagement in conversation with the oncologist and with the nurse practitioners.” 

As a cancer patient, Jeff views self-education as the key to empowering patients toward better care. It was through self-education that he learned about other options. Before becoming more educated, Jeff was mostly just listening and trying to absorb as much as he could and seemed to remember mostly bad news. According to Jeff, “There’s so much good news around myeloma treatment and available therapies. It was through self-educating and those conversations that my outlook brightened too.”

By patients educating themselves, they can start to ask questions about the clinical trial like: “What is it, and why is it going to show better results than my maintenance therapy?” And in conversation, patients can start to better understand the purpose of the clinical trial. “I think it’s important for patients to understand what they’re trying to accomplish through the clinical trial that wasn’t through their maintenance therapy. What is it about this trial that’s different that we haven’t addressed previously?” But patients can’t ask those questions unless they have at least a basic understanding of their cancer and how the various therapies approach the cancer cell. “But if you listen to webinars and things like that, you’re better able to have those conversations. As a matter of education as these opportunities arise, you’re able to have a much richer conversation with your oncologist and your care team about the benefits that could potentially be derived from the clinical trial.” 

Clinical trials have benefitted Jeff, and he recommends seeking an opinion that is dedicated to research of your specific cancer. Learning institutions have more access to emerging research and treatments that likely won’t be FDA-approved until 2 or 3 years later. “So if you as a patient can be at the forefront of some of these trials, that can be tremendous. I’m on therapies now that didn’t even exist when I was diagnosed. Research is moving quickly.”

Jeff senses some hesitancy among patients about clinical trials. “There’s this misconception that if you join a clinical trial, one group is getting the real stuff, and one group is getting the placebo. And the trials that I’ve been in, everybody gets the real thing, and everybody’s progress is tracked on their response to the real thing.” He knows trials can seem intimidating. Jeff went through his initial clinical trial, because he was almost out of options for conventional maintenance therapy. His cancer burden continued to increase, and he’d been through a number of different treatments. “The CAR T-cell program came up and seemed to be a perfect fit for me. So I did the clinical trial partially out of necessity, but I also had extreme confidence in my oncologist that he was promoting something that he thought would be most beneficial for me. I think it’s a matter of putting trust in your oncologist. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but I’ve had good results and good response to both clinical trials.” He also feels that the sponsoring institution will give an honest appraisal of where the program stands and what the progress and success has been up to that point. 

Reflecting on the value of Patient Empowerment Network (PEN) and other resources, Jeff says, “I’ve gotten so much out of the PEN webinars that are provided and some other organizations. I’m a slow learner in this area but am absorbing as much as I can. I need to hear the same thing a few times before I start to absorb it and fully understand it. So I rewatch the PEN webinars, and it works for me.” He also suggests learning as much as one can but was advised early on to stay away from Google. “There’s so much out-of-date information. Whereas websites like Patient Empowerment Network’s and others have updated information that’s far more relevant. And I also find the navigation on the PEN website very easy to use.”

After meeting patients who don’t have the same level of health insurance benefits, Jeff feels a sense of gratitude. “I had tremendous support from my employer who in essence said take the time you need to get yourself well again. So I have a lot of gratitude for that support, my wife as caregiver, family, social support, my faith community, and for my proximity to UCSF that makes treatment very practical and very possible.” It’s opened his eyes in that regard. There are so many benefits that he has that others don’t have. “I’ve joined various support groups initially to gain support. Now things have come full circle, and I find that I’m at the other end of the conversation to give people comfort in what they could possibly be doing to improve their situation.”

Support Resources

Financial Assistance Programs

Financial Resources for Patients and Families

Health & Disability Insurance

Federal & State Benefit Plans

Is It Too Late for a Myeloma Second Opinion?

RMC Patient Profile: Lamar Valentina Part 2

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Read the first part of Lamar’s RMC journey here…

Part of Lamar’s cancer treatment occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. He had to quarantine to keep himself safe, and it was scary to him at times. “But now that COVID-19 has subsided a little bit. It’s still around, I recommend doing some things that you enjoy. Don’t let cancer take away the joy that you still have. If you’re someone who’s active, maybe you just need to scale back on how active you are. Of course, you want to be safe. If you’re someone who likes to travel, find ways that you can still do it safely.”

Lamar found some activities that were helpful for him physically and mentally. “What helped me was being more involved in nature. I would do walks. I would sit outside and watch the clouds. I’d watch the stars at night. And I try to still continue to play basketball with my son. Obviously, he’s starting to get a little better than me. He’s getting bigger and faster, and I’m a little weaker. But I try to still do things that are fun and enjoyable.”

During part of COVID-19 restrictions, Lamar started missing the ability to do things, being self-sufficient, and even getting back into work. People asked why he was in such a rush to get back to work, but work helped him feel a sense of purpose. He felt like he had become a burden to his loved ones who had to cared for him. Lamar recommends striking a balance between accepting help and doing some things yourself. “Let others who want to help you actually help you. If you feel up to doing other things on your own, don’t shy away from that. Don’t let cancer take away a little bit of independence or a little bit of your purpose that you feel. I enjoy doing these PEN interviews, because I think we need that voice, and people shouldn’t shy away. Obviously, I’m not saying go out and be reckless. Be safe but try to do the things that bring you joy.”

People often tell Lamar that he looks so healthy and that he doesn’t look sick, which can be frustrating, since he wakes up with pains and has tumors all over. His biggest takeaway from this journey is how resilient he is. Lots of people tell him that he makes cancer look easy but don’t realize that it’s very difficult. “I just feel like life is short as it is. We all have an expiration date, and we don’t know when it’s going to come. And that’s the only thing guaranteed in life. For me, I really just feel like I want to live each day as if I’m trying to make a mark, at least be as happy as possible, chasing my goals and my dreams. I try to make sure with every encounter that I have with people that I’m not angry or bitter. I don’t want that to rub off on them, so I try to make sure that I greet everyone with a smile.”

If people don’t know specifically from his appearance since his eyebrows and hair are gone or know from someone else, Lamar prefers others to not know what he’s going through. “I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. Just treat me like a normal person, and hopefully I can pass on some positive energy and some happiness to everybody else regardless of what they’re going through to make it a kinder place here on earth.”

Lamar feels blessed about his overall quality of life. He’s at work and still travels for work as a flight chief in the Air Force. I’m not as physically active as I’d like to be. He’s doing chemo every three weeks, and will be starting radiation soon for a spot that’s remaining. The ultimate goal is to achieve no evidence of disease. He’s been in outpatient care for his entire treatment process and has been able to go to the hospital for chemo and then returns home and to work. “It’s been an absolute blessing that I cannot take for granted. But I still go through ups and downs. I have slight pains here and there. I’d love to be able to work out three to four days a week. But I’d rather take it easy and focus on my body healing from the inside out, and I’ll get back to working out more sooner or later.”

His biggest advice to renal medullary carcinoma (RMC) patients and cancer patients is don’t give up hope. “A lot of this fight is mental. Your body follows physically what you think mentally. So speak positive affirmations. Every day when you wake up even on the tough days, speak healing into your body. What you’re eating, whatever you’re drinking, it’s going to provide healing and substance. It’s going to rid your body of cancer. No matter how dark it looks or how dark it gets at any point, do not give up hope. Do not lose your spirit. Make sure you’re smiling and laughing and doing the things you love with the people you love.”  

Lamar looks forward to ongoing research of RMC. “This has been a huge purpose added to my life. Anything I can do while I’m here, I’ll do it. I’m a big advocate for more support and more research for RMC. I know each day we’re getting closer to a cure, and hopefully this won’t impact families as negatively as it has in the past.”

What’s Lamar’s parting advice to other patients? “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person that walked into it, that’s what the storm is all about. When you can’t control what’s happening to you, control how you respond to it, that’s where your power is.”

Introducing Jessica Catlin, Colorectal Cancer Empowerment Lead

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Jessica Catlin Introductory Video from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

PEN’s new Empowerment Lead, Jessica Caitlin, introduces herself and her journey with rectal cancer. She also encourages anyone looking for support to reach out to her at jess@pivotsolutions.live  or on Twitter at @jesscatlin or LinkedIn.

Transcript

Jessica:

Hi, I’m Jess Catlin. I am a survivor of stage 3B rectal cancer, young onset, and I am so excited to be the new Colorectal Cancer Empowerment Lead for the Patient Empowerment Network.

I currently live in Chicago and I was here when I was diagnosed at the age of 39 with rectal cancer, only after I was turned away at age 38 because the doctors thought I was too young for colon cancer.

Obviously, being an advocate for myself was a huge part of my success in coming out of rectal cancer. I have been a survivor for five years now, so my doctor says I’m officially cured. But being empowered was a huge part of my treatment, as well, and as being a survivor too and some of the issues that have come up ever since my treatment was over.

So, I have done a variety of different things with organizations, speaking at walks, speaking to medical school students, so on and so forth. So, now being part of the Patient Empowerment Network seems like a wonderful way to really tie it all together. We’re here to help you, to answer questions, to be a source of information, inspiration. Even just to be a friendly ear because nobody knows this journey like somebody else who has been through it. As the organization’s name suggests, to empower you because we know empowered patients really have the best chance to thrive.

Listed here on my bio page are links to some of those talks and webinars, and so on and so forth, that I have done with other organizations if you want to check those out. Going forward, I will be creating original content for the Patient Empowerment Network and I don’t know what that looks like yet, I want to hear from you. I want to know what is most helpful. Is it blogs? Is it short videos? Is it webinars or panel conversations? Let me know. My contact information is here on this bio page. Please feel free to reach out or on social media as well, and please consider sharing your own story too. Even if you feel like you don’t have it all figured out or are in the middle of things right now, that can be very inspiring and helpful to someone who is following in your footsteps.

Additionally, you can also support Patient Empowerment Network with your time, talent, or treasure. Thank you so much for stopping by. Thank you for being a part of and supporting Patient Empowerment Network.

RMC Patient Profile: Lamar Valentina Part 1

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When Lamar Valentina shares his renal medullary carcinoma (RMC) patient journey, you can tell that he loves serving and helping others in his work and free time even as a cancer patient. As an active duty Technical Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, Lamar has continued to work throughout his cancer treatment. When a lump on the side of his neck combined with extreme abdominal pain and flank pain concerned him, Lamar decided to have his symptoms checked out at the hospital. His RMC diagnosis came shortly before he turned 35, and his chemotherapy started about two weeks after his diagnosis.

Lamar is fortunate to have some friends who work in cancer centers, and they were connected with experts at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which is in Boston where his son also lives. The COVID-19 pandemic created a delay for some of his chemo, but it ended up as a benefit to give his body a break. Lamar recalls feeling some measure of relief about his tumor scans, “…we saw that there was a little bit of growth, it wasn’t alarming growth, but there was some growth, but it still hadn’t gone to where it was when I first was diagnosed, so that was the good thing that it wasn’t as aggressive as it’s known to be.”

After the things he’s gone through during his cancer journey, Lamar feels he has much to share to help other patients with what they’re going through. For newly diagnosed patients, he recommends that patients take advantage of resources and oncology therapists that most cancer centers provide. “Take the time to process the news of your diagnosis. I was sort of like a deer in headlights. Everything went blank, and I felt like I was in a nightmare of a dream, trying to wake up. So process your diagnosis and go through the emotions. You’re going to feel sad. You’re going to be depressed. You’re going to be angry. You’re going to be curious as to why you. But once you process those emotions, make sure you don’t compartmentalize those emotions and you express them to somebody whether it’s a friend, a caregiver.” 

Early after his diagnosis, Lamar decided to go full-on vegan and lost a lot of weight. “It was very frightening, because losing weight made my body become a lot more frail and weak. So I started to eat fish and chicken. His advice to other patients, “I think specific things like that definitely talk it over with your primary doctor, your medical team to make sure you’re doing what’s best for yourself and that you’re not going to hinder your treatment.”

Lamar feels fortunate to have connected with the Patient Empowerment Network (PEN) RMC Empowerment Lead Cora Connor through a Google search and found R.M.C., Inc. He also feels that the RMC community is a very tight-knit community, “I really like to pay homage to those we have lost. One of the first friends I met was Chad Alexander, Ava Cummings, Kai Penn, Da’Corey Kimbrough, Seth Calhoun, Caleb Wheeler, Feninna Vasilou, and there are so many other people I’ve met…they’ve since passed away. These are a few of the RMC warriors we have lost. I continue to fight for them and to everyone still battling RMC, I wish nothing but clear scans as we fight on the front lines together! Finding people who are going through this whether RMC or another form of cancer, I think you can relate more to cancer patients, because they understand what you’re going through.” 

Lamar advises patients to empower themselves. “You want to be able to at least know what questions to ask. And it starts with educating yourself. So I think you want to be able to go into those appointments and know what questions to ask, know if you get a certain answer to that question to know what a good follow-up question would be.” Early on in his care, he would record his conversations with his doctor to ensure he got all the information. Lamar also advises writing down questions before you go to your appointments to make sure you don’t forget about them. 

According to Lamar, being involved and learning about trial treatments are vital ways for patients to take part in their own care. “A lot of people have asked me about my treatment plan, but we’re all different. Our bodies are different. The way we can handle certain treatments are very different. So I try not to compare my care and the chemotherapy to what other people had. Because if you go based off that, you may turn down a treatment that may possibly work better for you with your genetics, and it may not have worked well for someone else, and you deny that based off their reaction to that treatment when it could be really helpful for you.”

Read the second part of Lamar’s RMC journey here…

Millennial Stage IV Colon Cancer Survivor Urges Earlier Screening

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Millennial Stage IV Colon Cancer Survivor Urges Earlier Screening from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

 Stage IV colon cancer patient Ashley received her diagnosis at age 33. Watch as she shares her story starting with a routine physical, surgery and treatments that she endured, and lessons learned during her cancer journey.

Special thanks to our partner, Colorectal Cancer Alliance, for helping to make this vignette possible.

Transcript:

My name is Ashley, and I’m from West Virginia but currently reside in Nebraska. In February 2021, I was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at the age of 33.

I decided I wanted to join the Air National Guard and had to complete a physical examination. After visiting a hematologist/oncologist for dangerously low iron and hemoglobin levels, I went in for a routine physical a few months later. The physician’s assistant found a mass in my stomach area, and they sent me for a CT scan. The next morning, my husband Josh got the call that I missed. The CT scan had shown three different masses – and was likely cancer.

I was dumbfounded, shocked, and then I felt the tears rolling down my face. My doctor informed me, “You need surgery immediately, since the tumors are getting close to completely closing up your colon.” I also had a tumor on my liver.

I had surgery to remove the tumor before it closed my colon, but the surgeon couldn’t get to the tumor on my liver. After surgery, they told me the three most important things to do while there that would get me home sooner were eating with no issues, walking, and having a bowel movement.

Finally after two surgeries where my liver, gallbladder, one-quarter of my colon, part of my small intestines, appendix, two large tumors, and a lymph node that turned into a tumor was removed, as well as 12 rounds of chemo.

I received news in March 2022 that my cancer is back but will not be as aggressive as it was before. I am taking things one step at a time and one day at a time, trying to stay optimistic at each step.

When someone gets cancer – the “journey” is never over. The fear NEVER goes away. Even when you are declared to have no evidence of disease, there is a possibility cancer can come back. And if it does come back, the chance of fighting and winning again gets slimmer.

If you know someone that has cancer – be kind – just because they don’t look sick, doesn’t mean they aren’t having challenges. Just because their numbers and scans are good doesn’t mean they are in the clear for the rest of their life. Always, always – BE KIND!

Some of the things I have learned during my colon cancer journey are:

  • Get your colon cancer screenings on time. Or if you’re too young like me, listen closely to what your body tells you and get annual physicals.
  • Say yes to those who want to help by bringing food, checking in, or donating. We are amazed by the support we’ve received from friends, family, and complete strangers.
  • Fighting the cancer fight is much easier knowing how many people are on our side and how much love there is for us out there.
  • Advocate for yourself! Do research on your specific type of cancer and mutations. If you feel you are being told something that just doesn’t seem right, question it – push the bar until you can’t anymore! There are so many options out there when it comes to cancer and survival, you just need to find the right person that will take care of you!

These actions are key to staying on your path to empowerment.

Advice From a Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Patient

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Advice From a Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Patient from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Colorectal cancer patient Jessica was surprised but not shocked even after a diagnosis under the age of 40. Watch as she shares her journey from symptoms, diagnosis, her advice to others, and coping methods she’s found helpful for navigating her experience as a patient.

Special thanks to our partner, Colorectal Cancer Alliance, for helping to make this vignette possible.

Transcript

My name is Jessica, and I’m from Chicago, Illinois. Even though my doctors thought I was too young, I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer at age 39.

I’d been experiencing occasional rectal bleeding for about a year when I was finally referred for a colonoscopy.

While my doctors were convinced that I was too young for colorectal cancer, I was still worried because my grandmother died of the disease.

My doctor asked me to go in to get my colonoscopy results. My parents knew what that meant, so we went together. When the GI gave me the results, stage III rectal cancer, I felt so scared. I called my best friend, and I couldn’t even speak. We just cried together.

After I received my diagnosis, my doctor told me it’s very curable. I had a 2-inch mass in my rear. I had a CT scan to confirm the cancer had not spread followed by an MRI. And that’s when the whirlwind began.

I returned to a craft I hadn’t used much in recent years. To sort my thoughts, to update my friends and family, to document the most important year of my life, I started writing again. Beginning a blog was at once a coping mechanism for me and the best way I knew how to share this breathtaking news with friends and family I’d collected from across the country and over decades — and still conserve energy I would need to fight this fight.

Five years later, and I’m thriving.

I want to raise awareness about the rising incidence of colorectal cancer in the under-40 crowd because I was symptomatic and ignored before I was diagnosed. I know that not everyone is as lucky as me, especially young people who are often diagnosed at an even more advanced stage.

Some of the things I have learned during my colorectal cancer journey are:

  • Watch out for signs your body gives you
  • Don’t take “no” for an answer even if doctors think you’re too young for colorectal cancer.
  • Cases of young-onset colorectal cancer are increasing, and that’s why funding colorectal cancer research is so important.
  • Find something to do to help you cope. If you’re unsure whether it’s a healthy activity, ask your doctor or care team member who you trust.

These actions are key to staying on your path to empowerment.

MPN Patient Profile: Robyn Rourick Part 2

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Read the first part of Robyn’s MPN journey here…

Picking up after 26 years of watchful monitoring of her myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN), scientist Robyn Rourick was then referred for an allogeneic stem cell transplant by her MPN specialist, Dr. Gotlib. The transplant team started working through the matching process for a bone marrow transplant donor, which often begins with close biological relatives. Although Robyn’s only sibling wasn’t a transplant match, a person considered a near perfect transplant match for Robyn was found.

At that point in her journey, the possibility of entering a Phase II clinical trial called ORCA-1 was presented by Robyn’s transplant doctor. She discovered that the ORCA-1 treatment had the potential to completely eliminate graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). The clinical trial made sense to her. In Robyn’s trained scientific mind, she agreed that the trial was founded on sound scientific rationale with the potential for clear benefit and signed up for it. She researched other things like whether the transplant team could look at biomarkers to guard against graft-versus-host disease, but she decided to take the clinical trial path as her best option.

As for her feelings about the stem cell transplant, Robyn felt there was likely going to be a positive outcome for her due to the ORCA-1 clinical trial. Her knowledge about the trial really brought her a lot of comfort and put her at ease for the time she’d be around her family post-transplant. Robyn was lucky because her doctor was actually the primary investigator on the study. When he presented the transplant study as an option, that’s when she started to do more searching to find what patient advocacy groups were out there.

Looking back on her MPN journey, Robyn wishes that physicians would provide their patients with more patient advocacy resources, such as those available through organizations like Patient Empowerment Network (PEN). She feels fortunate that she discovered PEN through another patient advocacy website, and she firmly believes in PEN’s mission of empowering patients to gain knowledge to advocate on their own behalf. “I had the realization that in the clinical trial I was in, I was only the sixth patient, and the technology was stellar in terms of what we’re trying to do in terms of cell therapy. I just felt like patients need to know about the treatment advancements, and PEN is an excellent resource for learning about treatment and support options that I wanted to share my knowledge and patient experience with.” 

Robyn was fortunate to have a team of physicians in whose knowledge and treatment recommendations she could trust. She’s  tremendously grateful, because she knows it’s not always the case, and so offers this advice for others, “Make sure that you’re comfortable with your physicians. And if not, then move on. Don’t be afraid to reach out and to make other connections to other doctors, even across the globe. You shouldn’t hesitate to request a conference call with another provider to see if they’re aligned with your diagnosis and your watchful waiting or treatment recommendations. Patients must have the utmost confidence going through their cancer journey.”

As for the scientists who handled her sample in the ORCA-1 trial, Robyn was able to meet the scientists and saw the analytical data of her sample. She was highly impressed with the protocols that they used with the samples. Robyn was just the sixth myelofibrosis patient to join the trial. To have spent her life working on medicines for patients and then to be on the receiving end of this cutting-edge treatment for transplants made her feel very privileged. 

In her life post-transplant, Robyn has continued periodic blood work for routine monitoring and has been doing well. Two years following her transplant, Robyn’s myelofibrosis is in remission, and she has no evidence of fibrosis in her bone marrow. Her test numbers have been progressing nicely, and she hasn’t needed any additional treatment since undergoing the transplant. “I don’t have a single regret. I haven’t had a pimple, an itch, a scratch, absolutely nothing. My life has resumed exactly how it was before the transplant.”

In reflecting on her patient experience, Robyn offers this additional advice to other cancer patients, “Take a deep breath and give it some time to play out. The moment that I heard the word cancer and the risks with rapid progression, I had myself dead and buried. In my mind, what I needed to plan for was death. Prepare my family. Get everything in order. And to me, that was going to be the ultimate outcome. But then as things unfolded, I had conversations, did a little bit of research, and found out I did have some options. Things weren’t so negative in terms of progression and mortality. Don’t jump to the most negative outcome possible.”

MPN Patient Profile: Robyn Rourick Part 1

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Though Robyn Rourick is a scientist by training and works for a biotechnology company, she took a mind-body approach to her myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) journey. The time that passed between Robyn’s initial MPN diagnosis and when she finally needed treatment was incredibly – and nearly shockingly – long. She was diagnosed with essential thrombocythemia (ET) 26 years after elevated platelets were shown on a routine blood test. After she saw a hematologist, they performed a bone marrow biopsy and concluded she didn’t have myelofibrosis and received the ET diagnosis. Robyn recalls of the time of her diagnosis, “I didn’t know about myeloproliferative disorders. Not many people did at the time. Nobody mentioned that I could potentially have an MPN.” 

Robyn’s blood levels were monitored over the years, and her platelets started to decrease. Though she didn’t realize at the time, her platelets were decreasing because her bone marrow was becoming more fibrotic. She was also tested for the early gene mutations (JAK2) that were discovered as more MPN research occurred but tested negative . She later switched to another hematologist who was very tuned into the gene connections. He looked at Robyn’s medical data comprehensively and was extremely attentive to any minor changes. As her blastocytes began shifting, he urged her to go see MPN specialist Dr. Gotlib. Dr. Gotlib did further analyses and classified her as having myelofibrosis, noting that when she was diagnosed with ET that her original healthcare team also couldn’t have  ruled out pre-fibrotic myelofibrosis at that time. Fortunately, Dr. Gotlib stated if he had diagnosed her with her original blood test 26 years prior, he would have recommended to simply watch and wait while monitoring Robyn’s blood levels on a regular basis. 

Although Robyn felt healthy and had no symptoms besides an enlarged spleen, as Dr. Gotlib dug deeper into her genetic profile, he found a unique mutation that suggested she was at risk for an escalation into acute myeloid leukemia mutation. He recommended Robyn for an immediate allogeneic stem cell transplant for her MPN treatment.    

Robyn then learned that graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) was a major concern for the transplant process, which can be debilitating. So she began to seek patient advocacy resources to inform her MPN journey. “I felt desperate and wanted to meet people who had myelofibrosis who successfully came through transplant. I didn’t want to just talk to a transplant person with a different disease.” Robyn went through some patient connection programs – including Be the Match, Caring Connections Program, and Patient Power – and was able to meet a few people and became quite close with one patient. 

She learned that even though transplant will cure your disease, doctors don’t always elaborate with patients on the potential for a compromised lifestyle due to  graft-versus-host disease. Sometimes patients will come through transplant in worse condition than before the treatment. Robyn had major fears about going through transplant and being able to work and do her extracurricular activities post-transplant. “I felt like I was going to be a letdown for my family and colleagues and didn’t tell my work until I was preparing to go out on leave, which in retrospect was silly.” After telling her manager, Robyn was given complete support, and realized she could have avoided carrying so much anxiety.

“For me, self-education and advocacy are important to enable yourself to have conversations about what’s possible in terms of your treatment. You don’t have to develop an in-depth understanding, but enough to have the ability to be conversational. If you’re proposed a certain pathway, it’s good to know enough to ask why. And if you’ve done some research on your own, then you can ask why not an alternate treatment approach. I think it’s really important to have some knowledge, because it builds your confidence to be able to move forward with what’s being proposed.” 

“Give it time, allow yourself to digest the information, have conversations about it, and develop your own understanding. At first, I was very closed about my diagnosis. I told my immediate family, and I told one very close friend who had gone through autologous transplant. The more that I began to talk about it and the more that I included people in the story, the easier my journey became.” Robyn also saw a cancer therapist who made some really good points to her. “She told me that ‘we’re all going to die of something, but most of us don’t know what that really looks like.’” In Robyn’s case, she had the opportunity to learn more about her disease, guide it, and direct her journey. And that opened up a whole new perspective.

The cancer therapist walked Robyn through some exercises: “What is it you’re afraid of? What do you have control over? Allowing yourself to gain control over some things will build your confidence that you can do this.” Robyn also encourages other patients to engage their network of friends and family and realize that it’s okay to depend on people. It’s not your fault that you have this diagnosis. Getting over the apprehension of telling people about your diagnosis and embracing help from others are key pieces of advice.

Robyn views patient empowerment as essential to the patient journey. She discovered Patient Empowerment Network (PEN) through another patient advocacy website and felt it brought her MPN patient experience full circle in terms of learning what’s available. “As I’m learning more about PEN, I’m just dazzled by the different forums they have to enable knowledge transfer, support systems, and advocacy.” 

Read the second part of Robyn’s MPN journey here…

Care Partner Profile: Mike Crocker

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The first time Mike Crocker became a care partner was in 2016 when his wife Dr. Gerri Smoluk was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). The second time was in 2020 when, after being in remission for four years, Gerri was diagnosed with leukemia again. The two experiences couldn’t have been more different, says Mike.

Gerri’s first diagnosis came shortly after she started a new job. Gerri, who had a PhD in biochemistry, worked in the pharmaceutical industry. She was feeling tired a lot, but she was brushing it off, blaming it on the stress that comes with a new job. However, Mike urged her to see a doctor, so Gerri had a coworker, who was also a doctor, check her out. The coworker sent Gerri directly to the emergency room. She was admitted and was in the hospital for 45 days undergoing chemotherapy. “She had a very severe case,” says Mike.

It was overwhelming to say the least, but Mike quickly took on the role of caregiver. He soon realized that the simple things were the most helpful. Mike made sure to bring Gerri some of the comforts of home. He made sure she had t-shirts and sweatshirts to wear instead of hospital gowns. He brought Gerri her laptop and yarn for crocheting. He brought her the few foods that she could actually taste after the chemo wiped out her taste buds. Mike was also her sounding board. He listened as she talked through her care options and how they would affect her quality of life. He was simply there for her, walking with her daily so she could get some exercise and maintain circulation, so she didn’t have to stay in bed with the compression sleeves on her legs. “I did all the little things that could help her be a little more in control and have as close to a normal day as possible,” says Mike adding that Gerri’s background in biochemistry and the pharmaceutical industry gave her unique insight into her care. “She started charting her tests and data so she could be a part of the solution and have informed discussions with doctors. She wanted details and wanted to know what to expect.”

Mike and Gerri learned that patients and care partners are given overwhelming amounts of information and that they have the responsibility of learning all they can and asking questions and making decisions. He says that doctors aren’t always keeping up with the latest research and that it is easy for them to get stuck in routine treatments. He found that doctors talk about options based on their experience and their skill set, but that doesn’t mean that approach is best for the patient. He says that being comfortable with the doctor and getting a second opinion if wanted are also important. He and Gerri learned to be active participants in her treatment and care.

In addition, Mike and Gerri were always looking ahead and focusing on the future. He concentrated on keeping her spirits up. When she was bald from chemo Gerri was looking at wigs and Mike says he encouraged her to go wild and get a bright red wig. “She didn’t go for it but being outrageous and adding humor to the moment was a way for me to help,” he says.

It was while she was in her fourth year of remission that Gerri found Patient Empowerment Network (PEN). “Gerri liked PEN’s focus on making the information understandable for patients, giving them easy-to-digest information to make decisions,” says Mike. Gerri jumped right in and helped to develop the Network Manager program which launched in March 2020. The program is made up of volunteers around the country who use their own patient experience to support patients and their care partners through their own cancer journey and on to a path to empowerment. “PEN is very important because it is patient-focused,” Mike says, and that’s why PEN appealed to Gerri. She liked that she could use her scientific background to help patients understand the information and to make sensible decisions for themselves. Gerri served as the AML Network Manager and was named a finalist for the 2020 Reuters Patient Champion Award in the Patient Advocate category.

Then in July 2020, Gerri got her second diagnosis. She celebrated her birthday July 7 and a week later, Gerri was back in the hospital. “This time she had a second type of leukemia which threw doctors for a loop,” says Mike. “Usually when leukemia patients relapse, it’s with the same type of leukemia.”

Although they had been through a leukemia diagnosis before, this experience was nothing like the first. “It was very different. It was during covid so of course, unlike before, when she could have friends drop in, she no longer could have visitors. Everything was more restrictive with covid,” says Mike. “At least I could be there every day.”

This time, Gerri and Mike were not expecting a longer hospital stay. They were expecting outpatient treatment that would be easier, and they were looking forward to time away from the hospital. The first time was so scary, but this time they were experienced, and they knew what to expect, but what they expected is not what happened.

After about a week Gerri got worse. Doctors were trying to figure out what was wrong, but they were unable to save her. Gerri died July 27, 2020. The autopsy revealed she had an antibiotic resistant bacterial infection.

More than a year later, Mike says he’s doing okay. “Everyone handles it differently,” he says. “You have to give yourself permission to not be happy and also give yourself permission to keep going and find other things to fill the hole.” In September 2021, he retired from his career as a web project manager, and recently he reached out to PEN looking for a way to use his skills to help others. “Gerri was the driver, so now I’ve been drifting,” he says. “That’s why I contacted PEN. I wanted to do something of value.”

Mike will be an invaluable addition to the PEN network of volunteers.

CLL Patient Profile: Allan Rosenthal

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When Allan Rosenthal shares the story of his chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) journey, you can tell that he didn’t let the word cancer hold him back. Affectionately known as “Dr. Pickleball” by friends and colleagues, he led an active lifestyle when he was diagnosed and continues to live an incredibly active life with CLL. Right before he was diagnosed in 2018, Allan noticed when he was playing doubles tennis with some men younger than him, he just couldn’t keep up with them. This unusual experience of a lack of energy spurred him to see his primary care doctor. Yet his diagnosis wasn’t a typical diagnosis – far from it. He works as a podiatrist, and his internist helped him to decipher the diagnosis.

After a laboratory blood test came back, it was revealed that Allan’s white blood cell count was elevated. His primary care doctor actually misdiagnosed his symptoms as an infection and put him on a round of antibiotics. And after his usual internist returned from vacation, he thought right away that Allan had CLL and sent him to see a hematologist/oncologist. As Allan remembers, “My doctor said, ‘You’re not going to die from this. You’re going to do the watch and wait or watch and worry.’”

Like many cancer patients, Allan’s diagnosis brought concerns beyond his health. “I was worried about the financial burden. Through organizations like PEN, my oncology unit, and the social workers at my hospital I have received help.” A nurse from the pharmaceutical company also calls him every month or two to just check to see how he’s doing in terms of both physical and financial concerns.

As a physician, he’s well aware of patients’ ambiguity with their care, and it’s always good to gain knowledge. Allan has recommendations for other patients, “It’s good to have someone with you at appointments. My wife is a nurse practitioner and is also a former oncology nurse, but it’s still tough to keep up with all the improvements going on in the field of CLL.”

Allan was diagnosed in the spring and was fine until later on that summer. The lymph nodes in his neck started to swell, and he went to his oncologist who informed him about the medication ibrutinib (Imbruvica). Allan says of starting his CLL treatment, “I remember taking the medication on a Friday and then going to play golf the next day with a friend. Pretty quickly I had the energy I used to have. Now I play pickleball, golf, platform tennis in the winter, and I ski. I just bought a Peloton bike during the pandemic that’s really helped me. I have no side effects from the medication. I’m living my life.”

As for his CLL treatment, he thinks of ibrutinib in the same way that someone with diabetes or hypertension would take medication for a chronic condition. His CLL medication has allowed him to live with CLL as a manageable condition rather than dealing with common side effects that many cancer patients deal with. Allan has also learned that educating himself about CLL is vital even for someone with a medical background. He’s experienced the value of patient education. And after he learned about the Patient Empowerment Network (PEN) from his oncology team in Connecticut, Allan shares, “I also know from PEN that there are other medications if this doesn’t work out. And I’ll go from there. PEN is keeping me educated to the fact that there is ongoing research, and there are other avenues; it’s not a death sentence.”

When he was first diagnosed, despite his and his wife’s medical backgrounds, Allan felt scared and depressed. He spoke with a friend in the medical field who said, “My father and uncle have CLL. If you start fretting about it, I’m going to wring your neck. They’ve been living with it for years, and it’s not that big of a deal.” He’s since come across more and more people in his life living well with CLL thanks to their efforts to become educated and proactive in managing their diagnosis, which continues to encourage him.

Allan credits PEN with helping him in his CLL journey, “PEN has educated me further along than if I went at this alone. Dr. Google is not exactly the best source of information, and Dr. Facebook isn’t a reliable source either.” Allan looks for reliable sources, “PEN is where I can get questions answered and get the proper answers from knowledgeable people in the oncology field.”

During his CLL journey, Allan has received valuable advice from others and is now happy to be in a position to help other CLL patients. His advice for other CLL patients? “Live your life. Be active. Staying active helps tremendously. And don’t panic. Everybody has the tendency to go crazy. It’s the big C word. I was scared also. I didn’t know what this was all going to mean. But as my oncologist told me, ‘You’re not going to die from this. We can take care of it. Just don’t panic.’”

Lung Cancer Patient Shares Top Tips for Utilizing Telemedicine

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Lung Cancer Patient Shares Top Tips for Utilizing Telemedicine from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Stage IV lung cancer survivor and nurse Gina has taken advantage of telemedicine opportunities in her care. Watch as she shares her perspective about the benefits of telemedicine and her hopes for the future. In Gina’s words, “..no matter where they are in the world, I don’t think that where you live should determine if you live, I think everyone should have access to the very best care…”

See More From Lung Cancer TelemEDucation

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Lung Cancer Patient Shares Why Telemedicine Is an Important Tool

 Understanding Telemedicine Pros and Cons for Lung Cancer Patients

 Lung Cancer Patient Shares Why Telemedicine Should Be a Long-Term Tool

Lung Cancer Patient Shares Why Telemedicine Should Be a Long-Term Tool

 

Transcript:

Gina:

When it comes to telemedicine, I think that we have to think of it as an adjunct to care, so it wouldn’t replace your actual care with your doctor, and so I think that utilizing telemedicine would really just be kind of like getting a second opinion, getting somebody else to look at your case, and it would have been an opportunity really for you and your community doctor to work with an expert in the field, wherever, whatever disease state you’re being treated it with, and I think that’s one of the silver linings of COVID that we can use, so it wouldn’t necessarily be that telemedicine is taking over your care, but it’s really just an adjunct to your care. So, you would still be touched by your doctor, you still would be assessed by your community doctor, but that community doctor would be leaning on the expertise of the doctor in which you’re getting a second opinion or you’re consulting with…so I think that’s the way that we have to think of telemedicine and diversifying and really making sure that everybody has access to the best care, it’s not really in placement of your normal care, but just an adjunct, so in addition to your care. 

One thing that I really hope that we can benefit from is…I hope that we can really learn from COVID. We learned that really there is a disease that is not defined by borders, and so I hope that we can use the opportunities and the things the way that we were, so I guess we persevered in spite of a disease, I hope we can use that for clinical trials to and so what I mean by that is I feel like the silver lining of COVID was telemedicine, and we were able to provide telemedicine to patients no matter where they were, no matter how they felt, they were able to have the best of the best care right in the comfort of their own home. And so one of the things that I actually personally benefited from was because of COVID, telemedicine was open up everywhere, and so I was able to actually get care from some of the best ALK cancer experts in Boston through telemedicine, and so I wasn’t actually required to travel to Boston instead, I could meet with that doctor by Zoom, and sadly, once the COVID mandates were lifted, that hospital was no longer providing telemedicine, so I was getting this great care, this expert advice in my disease process, and all of a sudden it was stopped, and so I hope that one of the things that we can do is figure out ways to utilize telemedicine to really bring the best care to patients no matter where they are in the United States or really…no matter where they are in the world, I don’t think that where you live should determine if you live, I think everyone should have access to the very best care, and I think it can be delivered through telemedicine.

MPN Patient Shares Advice for Making the Most of Telemedicine Visit

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MPN Patient Shares Advice for Making the Most of Telemedicine Visit from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Myeloproliferative neoplasm patient Debbie has had the opportunity to utilize telemedicine in her care. Watch as she shares the pros and cons of telehealth methods in her blood cancer monitoring and her advice to other patients for optimizing virtual visits.

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Transcript:

Debbie:

I think there is definitely a place for telemedicine in our care. It has enabled us to, or enable me to keep in touch with my hematologist and to understand where my blood counts currently are. What I would also say is, it’s…that there are positives and negatives. I think that the positive of it is the fact that I’ve got a regular update on what my blood counts actually are. I think the negatives of it can be, is that it is quite easy just to move the conversation quite quickly forward. It’s easier for me to just say, everything’s all okay. Thank you for updating me over the telephone, then it is perhaps if I was actually sat in front of somebody.

I think that the challenges it presents is that personal touch, is that feeling of being able to have a one-to-one relationship with your consultant. I don’t think you have that over the telephone.

So, some of the tips that I would share are that you keep in regular contact with your hematologist, you keep regular information on your blood counts, but you keep in a very, very safe environment. You do keep in a safe environment, and that I think is something that’s enormously important. A tip that I would probably give is that make sure that in between your appointments, you do what you would do regularly on a face-to-face and make notes of the things that you want to talk about…because I quite often put the phone down and think, I wish I had said that when I go to the hospital, I will have my notes in front of me and I put them on the table, and I’ll cross-check them with the hematologist at the time, I tend not to do that on the telephone, and perhaps I should, so I would definitely recommend that you treat the tele appointment exactly the same as you would the hospital appointment.

Lung Cancer: Gina’s Clinical Trial Profile

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Lung Cancer: Gina’s Clinical Trial Profile from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer survivor Gina was shocked after receiving her diagnosis at age 38. Watch as she shares her lung cancer journey including her diagnosis, treatment, clinical trial experience, and advice to other patients. In Gina’s words, “So what I’ve learned is that clinical trials are really the best and newest care for patients, and I feel like all patients should have access and have the experience of a clinical trial.”

Patient-to-Patient Diverse Lung Cancer Clinical Trial Profiles

Transcript:

Gina:

My lung cancer story is probably not that unique. There are actually a lot of people that are just like me. I was 38 years old, a nurse at the peak of my physical health, and I was actually training for a triathlon. And I just developed a cough, and no one would take me seriously. As a nurse, I felt like something was wrong because I was losing weight, and I wasn’t trying, and eventually I had to self-pay for a chest X-ray, and the chest X-ray showed that I had something going on in my left lung, but they weren’t really sure what it was. So, I took that chest X-ray to the emergency room for exactly what they tell you not to — a cough, and thankfully, the ER doctor took me very seriously and finally that led to a stage IV incurable, inoperable lung cancer diagnosis. As a nurse, I knew the severity of, of the diagnosis, and I knew that also there was a possibility for some new drugs, and so I’m so thankful that my doctor in Memphis knew to do biomarker testing, he found out that I was ALK-positive (anaplastic lymphoma kinase). My very first thing that had to happen was I had brain surgery.

And I feel like I’m a very lucky girl to have survived all that I have, and I watched the pain in my husband’s eyes as I rolled back from brain surgery and the f as I woke up from that brain surgery. And then the next thing was my left lung was removed, and I remember seeing my two boys and as I rolled back, how they were afraid for me to lose my lung, something that they felt like I needed. And so again, we experienced so much joy as I came back from that lung surgery and eventually recovered, and then I remember the first day that I actually was able to run a mile again, and that was so incredibly exciting for me. So now I was diagnosed in 2015, and now it’s 2021 and through the years, I went through each targeted therapy and cancer outsmarted it, and so the targeted therapy failed me eventually. And each one lasted about a year or so, and I think that through these years, I kept thinking that science would keep up with me, and I kept riding that wave of science and research, and I was so thankful. But we knew that it was incredibly important to continue to fund research for lung cancer, because when it comes to lung cancer, it seems like even though it’s the number one cancer killer of men and women and anyone with lungs can get it. The funding for it is so low because there’s still a thought process that smoking is the cause of lung cancer, and while we know that there’s a lot of people that are just like me who have absolutely no risk factors, we know that research is incredibly important for this disease. So, fundraising for lung cancer research and through our group, ALKpositive.org was incredibly important for me.

I just kept hoping that the next thing would happen, but I finally ran out of the last targeted therapy, and so that’s when I started looking for a clinical trial. And right now, it’s not that easy to find a clinical trial. Within our group, we have some amazing volunteers and members who really work to put the clinical trials out there for ALK-positive patients and to make sure that we know that we’re aware of them. And so anyway, I had a great friend who helped me look through the clinical trials, and eventually I found the perfect clinical trial for me. But it required me to travel to Boston, Boston quite a bit, and so that was really difficult raising two young boys and having my husband, who is also working, not be available. It was just really not fitting with our family to be able to travel and be away from my family so much, so I kept looking for clinical trials, and I finally found one that was about 200 miles away. And it still requires me to leave my family about every two weeks or so, sometimes just for a blood draw, but I’m so incredibly encouraged, because we found out that the clinical trial of this combination drug is working, and we found that cancer though it had kind of spread everywhere in my body, in my brain and in my pancreas, and even around my pulmonary artery, all of the cancer had decreased by about 50 percent. So, I’m incredibly encouraged, and that’s where we are now in the journey, and we’re just going to hope that the clinical trial keeps working and that new options are coming down the pipeline for other lung cancer patients.

A clinical trial is something that has, my perception has completely changed about. I thought when I was first diagnosed, a clinical trial was kind of like being a guinea pig, and now I think that it’s more like being a pampered poodle. So, what I’ve learned is that clinical trials are really the best and newest care for patients, and I feel like all patients should have access and have the experience of a clinical trial. We know that sometimes clinical trials don’t always pan out to have the best thing, but I see over and over again that clinical trials for patients have a lot of science behind them, and it’s an opportunity for patients to try the latest and greatest.

If you’re considering a clinical trial as an option, the most important thing is for you to become informed, really make sure you understand some clinical trial, really understand what the expectations are of you, and make sure that you’re willing to do what’s required of the clinical trial, make sure, that also that it’s conducive to your lifestyle and to your family. I think those are the things that are the most important. A clinical trial is an opportunity for the latest and greatest, but you also have to make sure that you understand what’s required and make sure that you are okay with the requirements of the trial.

If I were to tell you how I’m feeling today, I would tell you that I’m feeling encouraged that I have so much hope for the future. Being a part of a clinical trial has…honestly, if I’m very, very truthful, it was scary at first. In fact, I even cried when I signed the clinical…the clinical trial consents. It was completely scary, but now that I’ve been into the clinical trial now about nine weeks, my last scans were really good and really promising, and so for me, I feel very, very hopeful for the future, and I’m hoping that this is a drug combination that can be brought to other patients and that they can all benefit from this clinical trial and from my experience.