A Cancer Victim Finds New Hope
Patient touts
collaboration between Sequoia Hospital, UCSF
By Emily Fancher, STAFF
WRITER
San Mateo County Times
SAN CARLOS -- Bonnie Addario felt uneasy
about her doctors' plan to cut her open to determine if the
suspicious mark on her left lung was cancer. If they found cancer
while doing the biopsy, they wanted to operate immediately while
she was still under anesthesia.
"I just didn't feel comfortable going into
surgery and not knowing how I was going to come out," she said.
That's when Addario read about a new avenue
for lung-cancer treatment. An article in the San Mateo County Times
on Nov. 12, 2003, touted a first-of-its-kind collaboration between
Sequoia Hospital and UC San Francisco for difficult cases.
Addario thought maybe this could save her
life.
So far, it has.
"Had I gone the other route, I wouldn't be
sitting here today," said Addario, a vibrant 57-year-old who walks
briskly around her neighborhood every day. "There was a sense of
urgency in (the Sequoia/UCSF) group of doctors. It was serendipity
that article was in the San Mateo County Times."
Addario is among a growing number of people
who are surviving lung cancer, the most lethal form of cancer, and
among those in the county benefiting from new partnerships among
hospitals.
A new health report found mortality rates
dropped for lung cancer in San Mateo County between 1990 and 2001.
Still, about 3,800 died from lung cancer during that time, more
than triple the number killed by breast cancer, according to the
2004 Community Assessment: Health & Quality of Life in SanMateo
County.
Though Addario smoked a pack of cigarettes a
day for 25 years, her lung cancer also had a genetic component: Her
aunt, uncle and grandfather all suffered from the disease.
Addario was one of the lucky ones.
Difficult
location
Because the tumor was in an unusual location, close to important
arteries that branch off from the aorta, she felt pain across her
chest in the fall of 2003.
Addario said lung cancer is often fatal,
because it usually doesn't trigger pain that would
prompt a doctor's visit. She went to a doctor about the pain, but
after he misdiagnosed it and the pain continued, she decided to
have a full-body scan.
The scan revealed a suspicious white mark the
size of a walnut on her lung, but it was close to her aortic arch
-- a very delicate area -- and it would have been dangerous for
doctors to biopsy it without opening up her chest, something that
made her nervous.
After reading the article about the
Sequoia-UCSF parternship in the Times, Addario called Sequoia and,
within an hour or so, got a call back from Dr. Melissa Lim, medical
director for Sequoia's Redwood Pulmonary Medical Association.
Lim had initiated the new partnership with Dr.
David Jablons, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at UCSF, to work on
very difficult lung cancer cases and allow patients to benefit from
the best in training, technology and research from both
institutions.
The collaboration allows patients who might
normally be referred to UCSF to be seen for chemotherapy, surgery
and follow-up care at Sequoia, which is just blocks from Addario's
home. Lim agreed to take Addario immediately, and she tried a
procedure never done at Sequoia to biopsy the tumor: She sent a
small scope and camera down her esophagus to reach the area.
"Her tumor was such a special situation," Lim
said.
The treatment involved massive chemotherapy
and radiation at Sequoia beginning at Christmas 2003 to pull the
tumor away from the arteries to make surgery easier. During the
surgery at UCSF on St. Patrick's Day 2004, she was given a blast of
radiation while her chest was cut open, another unusual
treatment.
"She's a golden example of how collaboration
works," Lim said. "Sequoia wants to be a center of excellence in
lung cancer therapy, and the goal is to have the collaboration with
UCSF help bring us there."
Spreading the
word
But when she regained her strength, Addario wanted to do more to
thank the people who saved her life.
A determined grandmother of six who rose from
secretary to president at a local petroleum distributor in just
eight years, she knew how to be an effective leader.
She now sits on the board of the Sequoia
Hospital Foundation and on the advisory board for the thoracic
oncology program at UCSF, raising funds, giving speeches and
writing letters for both organizations.
JoAnn Kemist, Sequoia's vice president of
community relations, said Addario has shared her experience with
the community as part of her work on the board.
"There are often eyes that well up," Kemist
said. "It's a pretty dramatic story."
Kemist said Addario was able to take
advantage of the partnerships that Sequoia tries to forge
throughout the Peninsula.
"We have a core value of collaboration,"
Kemist said. "There aren't enough dollars to go around in health
care -- if you don't collaborate, the system is going to fall
apart."
Addario's been cancer-free for a year, and
after two years, it will be time to break out the
champagne, she said. After five years, she added, "You're in real
good shape."
For Addario, who is a spiritual person, her
experience has a deeper meaning.
"My goal, out of all of this I went through,
is to create an increased awareness to be your own advocate for
your own well-being," she said. "If I can save one life by creating
better awareness, that's what this is all about."
Staff writer Emily Fancher can be reached at
(650) 306-2428 or efancher@sanmateocountytimes.com.
Photo credit: Mathew Sumner
