patient-travel-familyBy: Tim Homa

“I have outlived my prognosis of six months by seven and a half years because I am able to travel through your service,” said Alice.

Alice, 55, uses Mercy Medical Airlift to fly from her home in Ohio to Arkansas, where she receives treatment at the Winthrop Rockefeller Cancer Center. In 2002, after a series of physical problems and the task of caring for her mother who had suffered three strokes, she was diagnosed with nonsecretory multiple myeloma. This is a rare variation of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. With nonsecretory multiple myeloma, the body fails to secrete a protein, and the bone marrow looks normal, allowing the myeloma to travel through the bones undetected.

Shortly before her mother’s death in 2001, Alice began to see signs of her illness. She started having shoulder pain and sought medical help. The doctor told her that all of her tests showed up fine and prescribed Vicodin. The pain grew worse.

“Eventually the pain was so bad I took eight at one time and the pain was never touched by it.”

As the pain worsened, Alice asked to see an orthopedic surgeon. For almost a year she received a cortisone shot every couple of weeks, but the pain remained.

After that, her right hand swelled up, and she went to her clinic doctor thinking she had arthritis. Her doctor laughed at the idea of arthritis and took an x-ray of her hand. By the time she arrived home, there was a message from her doctor to call immediately. She was told she had a fracture in her wrist and hand, and was instructed to see the orthopedic surgeon. Full body x-rays were taken and the doctor showed Alice the film.

“The doctor came in and shot up one X-Ray and said, you have a tumor here, here and here.”

A tumor had eaten through her wrist. Nonsecretory multiple myeloma was diagnosed.

She underwent seven months of chemotherapy and traveled to Cleveland Clinic in Ohio for stem cell transplants. This caused her to be away from home where she cared for her brother, who has Down’s Syndrome, her foster son who was severely brain damaged, and her biological son who was just starting high school. She kept in touch with her family and talked to her son three times a day.

“One of those calls he pleaded with me, saying ‘Momma, you can’t die. Please don’t die.’”

Once Alice was eligible for Medicare, she headed to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), the top research facility for myeloma internationally. She travels to UAMS every year, where they have stocked up on her stem cells in case of a relapse.

At UAMS she found out about Mercy Medical Airlift.

“The people who work for MMA are not just providing transportation,” she said. “They are the steady voice that gives you courage when you are alone and away from home.”

Alice, awaiting her son’s graduation from college this December, is still making progress with her illness, but the road is tough. She receives a small disability check and faces a foreclosure on her home. Thanks to MMA she is able to continue traveling to Arkansas for her treatment.

“They work miracles in their own way. They save lives.”