Pam G’s Immunotherapy Story

Doctor Antonia said there was a cancer study drug that had just come out and was being tested in clinical trials. The drug is called nivolumab, and it had only been out for maybe 2 or 3 years. He wanted to get me into that study program as soon as possible, because he felt that was the one chance I had. 

The side effects to this drug treatment therapy for me have been quite minimal. It’s just been a blessing and it’s saved my life. My goodness, I hope it saves the lives of many people. I just think it’s a miracle drug—at least it has been for me.  

They gave me a very strong chemotherapy treatment that involved two chemo drugs at the same time: VP16 and cisplatin. And then I would have to go and have radiation therapy as well. I went through about 7 weeks of the chemotherapy, which really made me quite sick. It was pretty devastating to my system and I didn’t know if I was even going to survive that. The radiation became very difficult towards the end. I wasn’t able to swallow anything and keep food down.

It turns out that the chemo treatments, the radiation therapy, none of that worked for me. In fact, the entire time I was on that treatment, the cancer was spreading throughout my body. During the chemotherapy, my immune system was depressed big time, and the cancer just took over.

I just thought to myself, you know, I’m not going to die. I don’t care how bad it looks. I decided I was never going to give up. I would just keep fighting and trying my very best.

Two things really kept me going. One was my trust in God; I realized I had to put things in somebody else’s hands. That, and the love and the support from our family. We have a huge support network of people at our church. I mean, everybody saw me when I was in really bad shape. They all say this is a miracle.