Featured Survivors - Leukemias and Lymphomas
Excellent Doctors and Trusting in God Have Saved My Life
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Name: Diana Smith
Age: 52
Hometown: Denver, Indiana
Type of cancer: T-cell, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Date of diagnosis: October 1985
Stage at diagnosis: Stage 3
Current date: June, 2009
Current status: Remission
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1. How was your health when you were diagnosed?
Excellent, healty.
2. Where were you initially diagnosed?
Parkview Hospital Fort Wayne, Indiana
3. What treatment was initially recommended?
Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne . Dr. John Csicsko performed a left upper lobectomy due to a mass that had overtaken that part of the lung and then a week later, I was started on the MACOP-B regimen of chemotherapy under the direction of Dr. S.R. Nattam of Fort Wayne, IN. The chemo consisted of daily pills and weekly infusions for 16 weeks.
4. Did you get a 2nd or 3rd opinion? If so, where?
No, I was in the hospital at the time of surgery and was told that it was a very aggressive form of the disease, and with or without treatment I may only have three months to live. So, I wanted to get started on treatment right away with three small children at home!
5. Are you still in treatment?
Praise God I am in remission and not in any treatment!
6. Did you try alternative treatments outside of your doctor's recommendation?
No.
7. Did you participate in a Clinical Trial?
No... it wasn't offered at time I was going through treatment.
8. Do you engage in any other homeopathic remedies or treatments?
No.
9. Did you change your diet? How is it different from before your diagnosis?
I have always tried to eat healthy... I work harder at it now!
10. Did you change your exercise program? How is it different from before your diagnosis?
The loss of the left upper lobe of my lung changed my exercise for me and I have learned to adapt to the loss of volume with NO supplemental oxygen! But I cannot participate in endurance type exercise, and fatigue easily in extreme temperatures. I become short of breath also under these conditions…but I am alive and well!
11. Do you take any nutritional supplements? If so, what do you take?
No, I try to eat healthy, well-balanced meals.
12. Did you change your stress reduction program? How is it different from before your diagnosis?
I think once you have been through something as life changing as a lymphoma diagnosis and putting God in the driver’s seat…the stress is reduced. I think it is more remembering to not worry about things I cannot change and pray about things that I can and that has helped so much!
13. Are you currently considered to be disease free?
Praise God... yes!
14. How long have you been disease free?
From Lymphoma…23.5 years! From skin cancer…two years!
15. What are you doing to stay disease free?
Thanking God for each day, putting my energies into helping others fighting this battle (I am a nurse), and trying to live healthy and listen to my body!
16. What do you think is the most important thing you did to combat your cancer?
I think it was a combination of several factors…putting it in God’s hands, finding a doctor I really liked and trusted, and never giving up hope when the odds were against me!
17. Are you willing to have a newly diagnosed patient contact you?
Yes!
18. Brief Additional Narrative
I have been a Registered Nurse for 30 years and this cancer experience has given me an insight to relate to my patients from the very core of my heart that I could never have learned sitting in a classroom. I recently had a scare with a nodule that popped up on my neck and had to undergo an excisional biopsy. One of the tests came back suggesting that the T-cell lymphoma might have returned and the tissue had to be sent to California for further testing – making for a long wait and testing of our patience and faith. Praise God it was negative! My point is that once you are diagnosed there are many challenges as with life, but I go back to that starting point each time, and remember that I am not in control and give it to God and coast on in!
Ironman Survives Leukemia and Becomes Remissionman
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Name: Stephen Brown
Age: 49
Hometown: Upper Darby, Pennsylvania
Type of cancer: Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
Stage at diagnosis: Stage 1
Current date: August, 2009
Current status: Couldn’t be better. 200 percent!
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1. How was your health when you were diagnosed?
Excellent except that I was having difficulties swallowing. My tonsils were “huge” at the time and I was scheduled to have them removed when my pre-surgery blood work came back abnormal.
2. Where were you initially diagnosed?
Dr. Stephen Shore, an oncologist (with Consultants in Medical Oncology & Hematology) diagnosed me after I was referred to his group.
3. What treatment was initially recommended?
The initial chemotherapy treatment protocol was to be four one-week cycles of two different agents, fludarabine – a broad spectrum chemo agent – and rituxan (rituximab), which is a monoclonal antibody. I was infused on an outpatient basis with rituxan on the first day of the week and fludarabine all five days. I did this the first week of the month and then had three weeks off. I hit remission between the second and third cycles and tried to talk Dr. Shore into letting me stop, but I couldn’t convince him.
4. Did you get a 2nd opinion?
I did not have an “official” second opinion, but I had friends in both the medical and research fields that talked with me and confirmed the diagnosis and treatment protocol. That was reassuring to me.
5. Are you still in treatment?
No, but I did do preventive maintenance for the two years following my diagnosis.
6. Do you take any nutritional supplements? If so, what do you take?
I take nutritional supplements, but probably none of them has anything to do with my treatment or diagnosis. I take things for good general health – the kind of thing that anyone might take: a multi-vitamin, multi-mineral supplement, and a strong anti-oxidant collection of Cs and Es. I use basic nutritional common sense.
7. Did you change your exercise program? How is it different from before your
diagnosis?
I have not changed my exercise program at all. I still compete in Ironman triathlons, marathons and short distance races. I also coach athletes for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. I am, however, wiser and more sensible now. There was a time when I might have been in the middle of a training cycle and even if I was excessively tired, I would have bullied through it. Now I listen to my body better and if I’m tired, I realize it is trying to tell me something. I won’t burn myself out the way I probably did in the past.
8. Did you change your stress reduction program? How is it different from before your diagnosis?
I have always handled stress the same way – and exercise has played a huge part in that. The biggest eye opener for me is that stuff can happen to anybody. I still handle stress the same, but I would say that after being diagnosed with cancer, my definition of a stressful situation has changed. For example, even when I am training for something difficult and something long, I try to be thoughtful and figure out what I need to do to successfully complete that race. That may not be what I need to do to be top 10 or have a personal best. I want to finish happy and strong and mark it as an accomplishment. I won’t beat myself up . . . I still have to come home to my family and go to work the next day.
9. Are you currently considered to be disease free?
Yes
10. What are you doing to stay disease free?
I am practicing the same lifestyle that I always have. I eat smart. I exercise regularly. I get plenty of sleep. I don’t do anything excessive.
When I completed my initial treatment I also did preventive maintenance chemotherapy. Over a two-year period, I went back every six months for a five-day course of rituxan. I did that for four cycles.
11. What do you think is the most important thing you did to combat your cancer?
In a word – I kept the right perspective. I handled it mentally as if it was a very treatable situation. I didn’t look at it with doom and gloom. I listened to what the doctor said, and he had a very optimistic outlook. I did some research, but I did the right research, and I asked the right questions of the right people – not just blind Internet searches that would bring back all kinds of ugly information. I educated myself a little and I looked down the barrel at it. I wasn’t going to beat myself up mentally when I saw that I could easily beat it physically.
12. Are you willing to have a newly diagnosed patient contact you?
Yes, I am happy to talk or email with anyone. They can contact me via my website – remissionman.com.
13. Brief Additional Narrative
When I received my official diagnosis of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), I struggled with the reality that fun-loving, life-grabbing, race-and-train-triathlon-loving me and the word cancer would now be used in the same sentence. Friends called me “Ironman.” “Chemoman” didn’t quite conjure up the same image.
Early on, I made the decision that I wanted to continue to train through and around my treatments. I wanted to send a strong message to the cancer that I was in charge. Fortunately, Dr. Shore and I reached a compromise on my exercise plan, and I was able to continue to train. I also was fortunate to go into remission early in my treatment, and have been in remission ever since.
I now have completed 10 Ironman triathlons. After my diagnosis and treatment, I was honored to pick up the moniker of “Remissionman.” Being diagnosed with leukemia has opened an entire new world for me. It connected me with Team in Training, and it has introduced me to amazing people. I have benefited greatly from them, and I hope they have benefited from me as well. I know I have been brought into this for a purpose.
Bodybuilder Won Biggest Competition of All
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Name: Dick Hathaway
Hometown: Lenexa, KS
Age: 66
Type of Cancer: Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia
Date of Diagnosis: 1992
Current Date: August 2009
Current Status: Cured |
1. How was your health when you were diagnosed?
Excellent – I was in the final stages of preparing to compete for Natural Mr. Universe, so I was 205 pounds with four percent body fat. I was ripped and ready to go – just two months out. My health had always been excellent because I was in bodybuilding, and we owned a health food store and restaurant.
2. Where were you initially diagnosed?
I was originally diagnosed at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. I had a swelling on the left side of my stomach. They did a sonogram and found that my spleen was five times its normal size. They did a blood test and the head of oncology informed me that I had chronic myelogenous leukemia.
3. What treatment was initially recommended (include facility name and location, doctor's name, pharmaceuticals, surgeries, etc.)?
They prescribed oral chemotherapy, which I took, but then they recommended that I have a second opinion for further treatment.
4. Did you get a 2nd opinion? If so, where?
Yes. The University of Kansas Medical Center, Department of Hematology.
5. What treatment was recommended with the second opinion (include facility name and location, doctor's name, pharmaceuticals, surgeries, etc.)?
I saw the head of the hematology department, Dr. Barry Skikne (Professor of Medicine and Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program) who confirmed the diagnosis. I asked what they recommended that I do to fight this. They did not beat around the bush – and I appreciated that. They said I could continue with the oral chemo as long as it kept my white blood cell count at a normal level of 5,000 – 10,000. (Mine had been as high as 250,000.) If, however, my blood count ever flared up again, a bone marrow transplant was my only hope.
6. Which treatment protocol did you choose and for what reason?
I initially decided to go off the oral chemotherapy, continue to work on my immune system, and see what happened to my white blood cell count. It quickly jumped to 80,000, so I decided to go ahead with the bone marrow transplant.
At that time, Dr. Skikne told me that the bone marrow transplant protocol had a 50/50 chance of survival, but I thought it beat the heck out of doing nothing. First I had to find a bone marrow donor that matched mine perfectly. Thankfully, my only brother’s bone marrow was a perfect fit, and he was willing to donate it to me.
In 1993, a bone marrow transplant was literally a journey to Hell. The goal was to kill every white blood cell that was in my body so that the transplanted bone marrow could make new, healthy cells. I began with a week of intense chemotherapy, and then for six days they added full body radiation for an hour and a half in the morning, and an hour and a half in the evening. I was fried, but I did what I needed to do. The treatment has changed now.
I was then moved to a LAF (laminar air flow) purified air room that consisted of three cement block walls and a plastic wall where the staff could take care of me while I had the transplant. The room was about five by nine feet and there was nothing to do but lie there and feel badly. The normal time to be in that room was about three weeks, but I set a record for KU and was out in 10 days.
Next I moved to the recovery room. By then I had lost 50 pounds, and it was all solid body tissue because I only had four percent body fat when I went into the surgery. They told me the minimum stay would be two months. I went home in two days. My body accepted the transplant, and I have not had any treatment since then.
7. Are you still in treatment?
No
8. Do you take any nutritional supplements? If so, what do you take?
I took several supplements including vitamin B complex, anti-oxidants and additional vitamin C - buffered. I also took beta-glucan, which is an immune system enhancer, dried shitake mushrooms – a cancer fighter, a calcium supplement and silymarin, which helps strengthen the liver.
9. Did you change your diet? How is it different from before your diagnosis?
I have always eaten a very pristine diet with organic foods, no red meat, and juices such as carrot, and beet juice. When I was diagnosed with leukemia, I immediately went on a macrobiotic diet, which is completely organic. I also took vitamins, antioxidants, and immune enhancers.
I am on the same diet before my diagnosis with no red meat, only wild caught fish, and organic chicken with no hormones. I drink a lot of filtered water. I also drink rice milk instead of cow’s milk, which is much better for your body.
10. Did you change your exercise program? How is it different from before your
diagnosis?
I didn’t have to change my workout program, because it was perfect for me. I still do the same exercise program that I did to prepare for competition, but I don’t do it as often now. I only work out three times a week for 40 minutes – but it is intense and would put a normal person down. I also go to the steam room after every workout. That’s one of the healthiest things you can do for your body. The skin is the largest eliminative organ of the body, and you can eliminate more toxins and chemicals through the skin than any other organ. When you perspire – that’s what you are doing. You’re getting rid of poisons and toxins through the skin.
11. Are you currently considered to be disease free?
Yes
12. How long have you been disease free?
Since 1993
13. What are you doing to stay disease free?
There are two very important things – the first is to avoid contact with chemicals, both on the skin and breathing them. I think the environment is responsible for many cancers. Second, your diet is one of the keys to maintaining good health. Even though my immune system is probably weaker than most because of what I’ve been through, I don’t get the flu or even a cold. My diet is that good.
14. What do you think is the most important thing you did to combat your cancer? When you have a bone marrow transplant, you are putting a foreign substance into your body, and it doesn’t want it. The medical team watches you very closely to see if your system is going to reject or accept it. Mine accepted my brother’s transplant. To help the process, I watched what I ate very closely so my immune system didn’t have to struggle with other things. I wanted the immune system to do what it was supposed to do, which was taking care of the body – rather than me putting chemicals and other harmful things in there.
15. Are you willing to have a newly diagnosed patient contact you?
Yes
16. Additional Brief Narrative:
Cancer is a very lonely battle, and other people who are diagnosed with cancer need to hear from survivors like me that it isn’t the end. Go in with the idea that you are going to make it. Staying positive helps the body's ability to be victorious.
When I was diagnosed with leukemia, I was preparing to return to the Natural Mr. Universe contest, which I had already won once. When I was in the LAF room alone, I told the Lord that if He would get me through this, I would go back and compete and try to be the first Mr. Universe who was a leukemia survivor – and I would give God the credit.
I went back to the gym after my treatment, and I was as weak as a kitten; my first work out lasted four minutes with a five-pound dumbbell. Each day I would add 30 seconds more, and 22 months later, I won the Natural Mr. Universe title again.
With faith, a working plan and determination, nothing is impossible.
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