When diagnosed with cancer in her lung, 80-year-old Donna Ripley doubted she would live through the treatment… Much less be alive to tell the tale of it and live out the rest of her life.
“I knew I couldn’t do chemotherapy and surgery wouldn’t be an option for me either,” said Ripley who was only given a mere six weeks to live.
But now, even after that death sentence… Ripley is making monthly visits to her doctor at St. Vincent Healthcare’s Frontier Cancer Center for a cancer-fighting regimen that puts her own immune system into action.
All it takes is half an hour in the chair with an IV hooked up to her arm to shrink Ripley’s tumor. The treatment is called immunotherapy. The primary drug, Keytruda, was approved for use last October.
“If she had come in a year earlier, we’d have said there’s not a lot we can do for you because the treatments at the time would have had a better chance of hurting her,” said Oncology Specialist Dr. Patrick Cobb.
Chemotherapy, known for its physical side effects like hair loss and fatigue, is toxic to cancer cells and normal cells alike. Cancer cells omit a signal that blocks T-cells, the body’s protectors, from targeting cancer.
“What these new drugs do is they interrupt that blocking system and allow the immune system to come in and recognize those cancer cells as foreign and kill them,” said Cobb.
There’s a battle being waged inside Ripley’s body as she kicks back in a reclining chair. “Once they get the needle in properly, why then, I don’t feel anything,” said Ripley.
It’s a painless procedure with startling results.
The treatment does not work for all forms of cancer, but it is an effective alternative for patients whose bodies are strong enough to withstand chemotherapy.
Ripley’s before and after X-rays, shown side-by-side, depict two dramatically different people: one shows a woman clinging to life and the other, a woman embracing new life.
“In doing this over the past 25 years, this is really a quantum leap,” said Cobb. “It’s made a big difference in how we treat cancer.”
For this 80-year-old grandmother, immunotherapy has changed how and for how long she experiences life.
“I mowed my lawn, it was yesterday that I mowed it, and I have a big lawn,” said Ripley. “Doctor Cobb couldn’t believe I did it the first time I told him.”
She’s come a long way from her diagnosis and she doesn’t plan to stop any time soon.
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