From relapse to recovery | Corwell Health

Sue Locker has helped hundreds of patients with cancer diagnoses.

Working as an interventional radiology nurse at Corewell Health, she frequently contacts patients who are scheduled for needle biopsies, line placements for chemotherapy, or stem cell collection and eventual transplantation.

She rarely missed a day of work in her 35 years as a nurse until August 2021, when she underwent a hysterectomy for endometrial cancer.

“It was found very early,” she said. “It was microscopic.”

Everything seemed fine until two days before my routine post-surgery appointment.

But that morning, “I noticed a big lump in my neck,” Sue said. At first, I thought she might have pulled a muscle.

Her doctor ordered an ultrasound. She also had a mammogram that week, as part of her routine care due to a family history of breast cancer.

“They found that my chest was full of enlarged lymph nodes,” Sue said.

Needle biopsy was detected Lymphoma. “That was a huge hit,” she said.

Just like that, Sue went from caregiver to patient.

Unexpected setback

Hodgkin lymphoma usually responds well to chemotherapy, with a cure rate of 80 to 90 percent. Sue felt optimistic to go into treatment, which included six cycles of chemotherapy every two weeks.

“I did really well,” she said, noting that she experienced some fatigue but no major side effects. “I worked the whole time.”

As an interventional radiology nurse, Sue has interacted with many patients with Hodgkin lymphoma.

“That was one of the hard things when I was working,” she said. “You open the patient’s chart and you see, ‘Oh, the lymphoma is back.'” “

A month or two after her last injection, a positron emission tomography scan revealed an enlarged lymph node. A follow-up examination revealed spots on her chest and armpits.

Sue, 57, is back in interventional radiology, this time as a patient. After a needle biopsy failed to produce an adequate sample, she underwent surgery.

Hodgkin lymphoma is back.

magic number

That’s when she met Robin Shah, MDa physician with the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Corewell Health.

The next line of defense for patients with a relapse of Hodgkin lymphoma is autologous stem cell transplantation. In autologous transplantation, stem cells are taken from the patient and not from the donor.

“It can treat a large number of patients,” said Dr. Shah.

Dr. Shah has never met Sue before but frequently consults with her interventional radiologist for lines before stem cell transplants.

“You never imagined she’d be in this position,” he said.

The BMT decided that Sue would be an excellent candidate – she had a support system and was in good physical shape. She will need all of these resources to move forward.

You will undergo three rounds of intensive inpatient chemotherapy.

“You’re using second-line chemotherapy to try to get the disease back into remission before transplant,” said Dr. Shah. “In Sue’s case, the response was complete and that gives us an indication that she will do well and we hope she will remain in remission.”

The next stage of treatment involved the collection of stem cells. The magic number: 3 million.

To prepare, Sue had to give herself daily injections to stimulate cell production.

Every morning, her mother, Donna Groters, would drive her from her home in Hudsonville to Corewell Health’s bone and marrow transplant clinic to see if she had achieved her goal.

“the [bone and marrow transplant] Sue said. “I think they were as disappointed as I was every day when it didn’t happen.”

When that happened, the team sent her messages with balloons and party hats. The transplant was in progress.

Ten days later, Sue was accepted for six days of high-intensity chemotherapy with the goal of eradicating the lymphoma. It also destroys bone marrow and causes side effects including hair loss, mouth sores, and nausea.

Passionate day

Transplant day has finally arrived — December 1, 2022 — which also marks the team’s 1,000th cell infusion.

On the other hand, the one- to two-hour operation felt “anticlimactic,” Su said.

“On the one hand, it was very emotional, because the process of getting there is very stressful,” she said.

The days after transplant would also be stressful, when the side effects of intensive chemotherapy entered into high gear: nausea, lack of appetite, skin rashes, mouth sores and fatigue.

Her doctor and nurses assigned her three jobs: to drink, to eat, and to move.

And you have a positive attitude, Sue said. “You think it sounds easy, but it doesn’t when you have no appetite and you don’t feel satisfied.”

But Sue followed their instructions to a T, walking the 70km walk into the entrance of a BMT unit.

When hospital food did not resume, her husband, Dan, brought candy from the cafeteria.

“The team, the staff on that floor, were amazing,” she said. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Throughout her treatment, Sue relied on her family, friends, church community, and faith.

“It helped me a lot,” she said. “I knew there was a plan. God was in every detail.”

Next to her favorite chair is a chest full of cards and letters from friends and family, along with a plaque that reads: “For everything, give thanks.”

This feeling of gratitude has helped Sue throughout her cancer journey.

One night, in the midst of treatment, she couldn’t sleep.

“All I could think about was how many blessings I had,” she said.

“People ask, ‘How can you be so positive?'” Sue said. “I couldn’t think of a single negative thought. All I could think about were all the blessings I had from my family and friends.”

A familiar wake-up call

Sue went home after just 20 days in the hospital – less than the average stay of a month.

You smile as you remember that first morning.

In the hospital, the nighttime soundscape consists mostly of the blaring of pager lights.

Her neighbors have goats and donkeys that bray in the morning.

“I’m lying in my bed in the morning and I hear those donkeys braying and I say, ‘I’m home!'” she said. “It’s the donkeys, not the call lights!”

“I was really tired at first,” she said of the first weeks after transplant. She gradually regained her strength, taking daily walks, feeding the donkeys, and even venturing out to lunch or dinner with friends.

Dr. Shah said Su worked “very well.” Positron emission tomography (PET) scans show that she is still in complete remission.

The next stage of treatment involves injections of immunotherapy, given every three weeks for a year.

As she continues to recover, she and her mother now spend time with their regular routines: grocery shopping, lunch outings, and frugal shopping, rather than trips to Corewell Health.

Sue is looking forward to traveling again, starting in April with a trip to Utah where she hopes to cross hiking through a canyon off her bucket list. She also looks forward to camping and gardening.

On March 2, Sue returned to work. She said her personal experience would “change my practice moving forward”.

“It also makes you realize how everyone has a story,” she said. “It makes you have more of a blessing that you give others because you don’t know how hard they are going through.”