Cisplatin, Surgery And Faith Restore Hope For 37 Year Old Woman
This is the story of my wife, Susan, who was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma on 1/12/97. She is only 37 years old. She had been having a problem with shortness of breath and a lot of pain in the left side of her chest. A thoracentesis was done in July of 1996. This was to try & find out why her lung was filling with fluid. The test results of the fluid drained and a tissue sample taken at that time were negative for cancer. The doctor diagnosed her with a damaged lung due to a pneumonia she must have had but didn't know it. The doctor felt that this caused the bottom of her left lung to get hard.
On 1/2/97, Susan underwent surgery to "repair her left lung". When the doctor opened her up he found the cancer. The pathology lab at the South Jersey Hospital Systems in our town, Millville, New Jersey, diagnosed the cancer as adenocarcinoma with an unknown primary. The doctor told me that they may never know what the primary is but that it was a glandular type of cancer which meant either the breast or bladder. The doctor also told me that my wife had 2 - 3 months to live but felt that with some treatments she might make it a year.
I would not accept this. I took Susan to Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pa. I took the slides with the cancer tissue that the pathology lab at our hospital used for their diagnosis. I am glad that I did. The lab at Fox Chase did their own testing and made a diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma of a epithelial cell type. She went through 6 weeks of cisplatin treatments. A CT scan was done before and after the chemo treatments. Initially, it was felt that there was no response to the cisplatin treatments.
Susan underwent surgery on 4/22/97 to remove her left lung, replace her diaphragm with plastic and to remove part of her heart sac. The surgeon's name (also at Fox Chase Cancer Center) is Dr. Melvyn Goldberg. Dr. Goldberg is the chief of staff of thoracic surgery at Fox Chase Cancer Center. When Dr. Goldberg opened Susan up he found that the mesothelioma did respond to the cisplatin treatments and what was showing up on the CT scan was some of the scar tissue that was left behind. The surgeon spent 6 hrs surgically removing all the mesothelioma tumor that he could. There is a little cancer left and it is felt that with radiation treatments and additional cisplatin treatments she may have a good chance at beating this cancer.
The surgeon did not have to remove Susan's lung or replace her diaphragm. We feel that if God did not have his hand in this that she would not have responded as well as she has. As of today, it has been a long road but a road with a lot of promise. I am very happy that we chose not to accept the first diagnosis. Fox Chase Cancer Center is a wonderful hospital. We would recommend this hospital to anyone.
Thank you for listening.
Don
