Fighting Cancer with Determination
When Sarah Campbell was just 9 years old, she was sent to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center with severe leg pain. Her family found out she had a tumor, 6 inches long and in the shape of an ice cream cone, wrapped entirely around her right knee. She was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a form of bone cancer.
For the next six years, Sarah battled her cancer with a strong determination. Amputation was suggested right away, but Sarah's parents wanted to do what they could to save her leg. She immediately began chemotherapy and radiation treatments to destroy and shrink the tumor cells. A bone replacement surgery took bone from her left leg and put it into her right leg. She spent the next several months in a wheelchair with a cast on each leg.
Sarah was in remission and things were looking up until her leg broke where an infection had been. Her doctors suggested a bone stimulator to help the bone grow back. Another set of treatments began. Nine months later, Sarah learned the bone stimulator wasn't working. The doctors again suggested amputation. Sarah was 15 years old at the time.
Sarah and her parents made the agonizing decision together. Sarah was tired of endless doctor appointments. She decided she was ready – she wanted her leg amputated above the knee. "She had a lot of determination," her mom Lori Teegarden says. "I don't know if I could have done it."
Now a junior in high school, this soft-spoken 17-year-old is enrolled in the Long-Term Survivor Program at Cincinnati Children's.
Providing Ongoing Monitoring
The Long-Term Survivor Program was founded in 1988 with support from the ATP Tennis Masters Series tournament. The program provides comprehensive medical and psychosocial follow-up care for cancer patients who are five years from
diagnosis and off treatment for two or more years. Its team of a pediatric oncologist, adult internist and nurse practitioner is currently tracking more than 700 survivors.
"With a 70 percent cure rate for pediatric cancers, we now have a lot of survivors, and that's great," says Cynthia DeLaat, MD, director of the Long-Term Survivor Program. "Today, one in 900 young Americans from age 20 to 30 is a survivor of pediatric cancer."
While great strides have been made in fighting childhood cancer, the powerful chemotherapy drugs and radiation treatments that cure cancer can cause medical complications later in life. The program provides ongoing monitoring to screen for side effects of treatment. The goal of this monitoring is to identify developing problems and intervene early.
Sarah makes regular visits to the Long-Term Survivor Program clinic. Her check-ups include a complete physical and blood work. Now more than two years since her amputation, Sarah is doing well and is happy to be considered a cured cancer survivor.
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