Denise Zackman’s Immunotherapy Story

I had the very typical Taxol-carboplatin chemotherapy regimen. I was treated locally in Virginia, but I sought out a second opinion at Johns Hopkins. They recommended that I also do what’s called intraperitoneal chemotherapy, which is where they pump the chemo into your abdominal area in hopes that it will kill the cells that are in there. I had six treatments of that.

Later, I had another big surgery, and another round of chemo. I had a spot come back on my chest wall and another surgery for that but no chemo. So that was all between 2007 and 2011.

I found out through some Internet forums. Team Inspire is a pretty large message board. It’s just a lot of women with ovarian cancer sharing their stories along with some pretty in-the-know people on there that share new therapies and approaches that are coming up. So I found out from there and then inquired at Penn individually. At that point I was in my third recurrence, so I was kind of looking for a new treatment.

You have an ultrasound tech, a radiologist, a doctor, and a nurse in the room with you because they’re injecting directly into your lymph nodes in the groin area. The ultrasound tech monitors the ultrasound, and the radiologist guides the doctor. Between the two of them, they agree on a suitable lymph node on either side of the groin to inject into. But it’s fast and has some pain but nothing that’s unbearable by any means.

Overall, I think I’ve been successful at staying pretty positive. There are, of course, bad days because realistically you have to sometimes think about what could be the inevitable outcome when you’re diagnosed with a late-stage cancer. But I do try sometimes to get through days without thinking about that.
 
It’s been a part of our life for seven years. So it’s strange, but it’s kind of just there. My kids have always grown up with me having cancer. I go and I get treated. But we live a normal life. They go to sports; we have dinner every night. Thankfully I haven’t been too outwardly ill, which makes it easier for them to deal with.
 
And I have had the support of family, my husband. My mom was able to travel with me to Penn, which is a huge help, so he can stay home with the children and go to work and kind of keep things as normal as possible at home. Then I have friends and other family that pitch in where they can. And in terms of this trial, when you get to your fourth recurrence, it feels pretty grim. So if you have something that is new and has these, thus far, promising results, it renews your hope a little bit.

Absolutely. Aside from that week where you’re not feeling well, it’s a very benign treatment. The most intrusive part for me is the travel. That disrupts me the most, but you don’t have the typical nausea. You don’t have hair loss. There’s a little bit of fatigue, perhaps, but nothing debilitating. And then, of course, there are the positive results.