| Sketches of Strength, Chapter 2 - Geraldine Ferraro |
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| Written by Dr. Mel | |||||
| Friday, 13 January 2006 | |||||
Page 2 of 3 When I spoke with Geraldine, she did admit that the initial diagnosis of multiple myeloma seemed more devastating than even any of her bitter political losses, but she was somewhat accepting. She said, “Running for office, one can lose, but there is tomorrow. With this, there is a finite period of time.” After she learned of the diagnosis, she sold her house in the Queens and moved to an apartment in Manhattan. As with many myeloma patients, climbing stairs is a problem, and she wanted to live on one level. The apartment also provides plenty of services which she felt would be important for her husband if her life were cut short. Geraldine was “putting things in order.” She closed her 1992 political campaign debt of $300,000, and her 1998 debt of $400,000. But beyond reaching closure in some aspects of her life, Geraldine wasn’t quite ready to allow the disease to diminish her determination to make the very most of the years she felt that she still had. In fact she called the disease an “opportunity.” She says, “This has been a win.” She first focused upon finding the very best medical care. Because multiple myeloma is a less common form of cancer, many doctors do not have extensive experience in dealing with the disease. At the same time, myeloma seems to be patient specific- while there are commonalities in patients with the disease, there always seem to be significant differences from patient to patient. The disease is a cancer of the bone marrow- an over production of useful plasma cells in the marrow- but from here on, people will be affected in myriad of ways from severe bone degeneration to kidney and organ failure to immune system breakdown. In Geraldine’s case, she wasn’t even aware that there was anything wrong. As part of a routine physical, she had undergone some blood work which indicated too many white blood cells, and that led her doctor to further tests which confirmed the telltale myeloma signature in her blood of a spike of a single protein, rather than an even distribution of a spectrum of proteins. She was fortunate that her initial tests included that extensive blood work. Most routine exams will not. Still, her doctor was not a specialist in myeloma, and now she needed one. Throughout the world a number of cancer centers will have a specialty in myeloma with doctors that concentrate upon treating myeloma patients and perform research on the disease. In these centers, exciting new developments are occurring with increasing frequency, and Geraldine wanted to make sure she had the opportunity to be treated at such a center. Cutting edge treatment was not good enough. Geraldine wanted to go beyond that. While there are standard treatments which have led to a better quality of life for patients, these have not cured the disease. Geraldine soon learned after diagnosis that the life expectancy for myeloma patients was just about three years. Drugs that are just entering medical trials may not become available to most patients for five years, or more- or until the drugs are approved by the Federal Drug Administration. Her doctors recommended that she travel to either Arkansas or Boston to take advantage of the new treatments being developed at centers there, and she decided upon Boston where she eventually began treatment with a bad old drug that had wonderful new applications- Thalidomide. That is the drug which was taken by pregnant women in the 1950s and 1960s to alleviate morning sickness. The drug is a mild sedative, but it also caused severe birth defects. Women in Canada and Europe were most affected because, in this case, the drug was never approved for such use in the United States. Yet the properties which led to these birth deformities are the same properties which become important in fighting myeloma. Later we tell the amazing thalidomide story and how the determined wife of a patient in late 1997 insisted that her husband receive the drug. That effort seemed to open the door to all kinds of new therapies- a whole new world in myeloma treatment. But this is a story for us to tell later. |
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