My Story, A Cancer Journey in Three Acts
My name is Greg Barnhill, I live in Katy, TX, a suburb of Houston, with my wife of soon-to-be 45 years. I have two grown children Greg Jr. and Ashley and we are blessed to have two grandsons, Hayden and Shane. I have had an unusual journey with cancer and would like to share this with you.
Act 1
In August of 2001 I was having some difficulty with my vision, I was seeing flashes, lights running across my vision and called my family eye doctor. It was a couple of weeks before I could see him and I am so glad I did. Dr. Blair, my eye doctor, said you have an anomaly behind your left eye and I am not sure what this is, I am referring you to a retina specialist for an appointment. We made the appointment and went to the medical center in Houston. The retina specialist ran tests and at the end of the day came in and said “Well, you have a lesion on your optic nerve, well it’s actually a tumor, well it’s cancer and it’s malignant.” I am going to send you to a hospital in Philadelphia, PA immediately for treatment, you need to obtain a referral from your family physician.
We made the appointment with our family doctor and she said, why are you going to Philadelphia when the best cancer hospital in the world is here in Houston? She made a referral to MD Anderson and a couple of weeks later my journey continued. I had no idea about eye/ocular cancer or that there was a whole department at MD Anderson devoted to eye cancer. I saw my ocular oncologist and he told me I had Uveal Melanoma a rare eye cancer with an incident rate of around 1,500 people in 1 million. We had some options, watch the tumor, treat the tumor with radiation or remove my eye. We elected to do radiation.
A gold disc about the size of a quarter, called a plaque, was fabricated and held Iodine 123 radioactive seeds. Surgery was scheduled, they took out my eye, sewed the plaque on the rear of my eye and my eye was put back into my socket. I was in isolation for almost a week and at the end of the week a second surgery was scheduled to remove the plaque. After the surgery I did lose some vision but the tumor stopped growing.
I continued with my regular monthly follow-ups and things were just fine until the spring of 2003 and the tumor began growing again. My options then were to do nothing, go to London, England for a special radiation that had a 10% chance of being successful or to remove my eye and the tumor. We elected to do the enucleation, removing my eye.
My journey continued and I kept up with my follow ups, and because this Uveal Melanoma metastasizes to the liver I had regular ultrasounds. In the summer of 2005 my oncologist advised that there were now spots/lesions in my peritoneal cavity. Again, we had options, watch and do nothing or have biopsies to determine what the tumors were. I had several biopsies at MD Anderson and they found that the Uveal Melanoma had not metastasized but I had peritoneal mesothelioma, a rarer cancer than my eye cancer and there was no cure. The median life expectancy after diagnosis was 8–18 months.
Act 2
MD Anderson ran tests and were able to get me into a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health, NIH, and the National Cancer Institute, NCI, in Bethesda, MD. In September of 2004 my wife and I made the trip to see if I qualified for the trial. I was able to qualify. The early detection of the cancer was a big help as there are no symptoms of this cancer and it’s usually found when it’s stage 4.
I qualified for the trial which would include surgery to remove the tumors and any other affected organs and then I would have a new chemotherapy called the CHIP, Comprehensive Hypothermic Interparitineal Perfusion. Two new chemo drugs would be heated to above my body temperature, mixed, and then put through a port into my abdomen. After testing and qualification in January of 2005 I had an 11.5 hour surgery to remove the tumors, my spleen and my omentum. I then had the CHIP. Ten days after the surgery I had another round of CHIP, and after about 3 weeks in the hospital I came home to Texas.
Over the next 3 years my wife and I made 15 trips to the NIH and in the fall of 2008 I was released from care and was put on routine follow ups at MD Anderson. All during my treatments and follow ups at the NIH I kept up my visits with my ocular oncologist. In October of 2008 the NIH said I was in remission and the new standard of care for this type of mesothelioma was the trial that I participated in.
Act 3
From 2008 to 2016, I continued my checkups at MD Anderson which included blood work and CT Scans. In August of 2016 my oncologist advised that there was something unusual in my hip and back after my CT scan. We scheduled a PET scan and further evidence found the areas of concern. Bone marrow biopsies were performed and the results showed I now had Multiple Myeloma, a blood cancer which again there was no cure. I was referred to the Myeloma specialists at MD Anderson and a treatment plan was developed.
During the fall of 2016 through January of 2017 I had two days a week of IV chemotherapy and daily oral chemotherapy to try and bring the Myeloma under levels where I could have a stem cell transplant. In February of 2017 we began daily harvesting of my stem cells to collect enough cells for the transplant. In early March I was admitted to the transplant floor at MD Anderson and had a round of chemotherapy which was 4 days then I had another round of a new clinical trial chemotherapy for 3 days. These drugs killed all of my bone marrow and after the second round my stem cells were reintroduced to my body. I spent almost a month in the transplant floor and then was released to go home where I recovered. During the recovery I was on daily antibiotics and had blood tests almost daily to verify that I had no infection and that my white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets were returning to normal. Once things returned to normal, as normal as you can be at this point, I began a maintenance program of daily chemo pills. I also qualified for a new clinical trial which included 8 weeks of IV chemo once a week and now is once a month.
Currently, I am in remission and continuing on the regiment of once a month chemo, oral chemo for 21 days, off for 7 days then back to 21 days. I have been blessed to participate in these trials and I am a firm believer of clinical trials and second opinions for care. I am also an advocate for early detection and following up with your oncologist for your checkups. Please help support cancer research and funding.
Grace, Peace, and LIVESTRONG,
Greg
