By Cynthia Hubert, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.
Jul. 19–For seven years, cancer was a matrix of numbers on Della Blankenship’s computer screen.
As a business analyst and project manager for the California Cancer Registry, Blankenship tabulated and tracked the disease’s ugly path across the state. Lung cancer. Prostate cancer. Breast cancer. Cancers of the brain and skin and liver.
Only rarely did Blankenship, 40, a single mother of two, allow herself to think about the faces behind those numbers.
Then, out of the blue, Blankenship was stricken, diagnosed with a form of lymph cancer. She landed on her own database.
“You never think it could happen to you,” said Blankenship, stroking her cat, Suki, in the living room of her Land Park apartment. “Of course, you feel bad anytime you hear that someone has cancer. But this was not someone’s aunt or cousin. It was one of us.”
Now, following two grueling courses of treatment, Blankenship is trying to foil the numbers and beat the odds. The cancer fight has become personal.
“I will never be able to approach my job the same way as before,” she said.
For the past seven years at the cancer registry, which collects data about the disease and researches possible causes and cures, Blankenship has documented a sobering toll.
Between 2001 and 2005, 710,809 Californians were diagnosed with cancer — 27,000 in Sacramento County.
“Everyone’s goal at the registry is to eradicate cancer,” Blankenship said. “But I never thought about it in the way I do now. Now, I think about the fact that there is a story and a person behind every number.”
Blankenship’s story revolves around Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Her database shows the disease is relatively rare, striking slightly more than two in 100,000 Californians. Breast cancer, by contrast, occurs in more than 14 people out of 100,000.
Hodgkin’s is a cancer of the lymphatic system, which is part of the immune system. As it progresses, the cancer interferes with the ability to fight infection. At one time Hodgkin’s was almost always fatal. Today many patients survive after rigorous treatment.
Blankenship, a divorced mother of Emily, 5, and Eric, 3, is convinced she will be among the survivors.
Her cancer journey began about a year ago, after months of fighting a stubborn cough and severe fatigue. At first doctors thought that Blankenship, an outdoors enthusiast who snowboards, scuba dives and camps, had allergies or pneumonia.
But scans of her chest found an a large dark spot that turned out to be a cancerous tumor.
“My first reaction was, ‘OK, we finally have a diagnosis. You guys can fix me now,’ ” Blankenship recalled. “After a few days passed, it started to sink in. ‘I have cancer. Holy cow. I have kids. Will I get through this? What will the treatment be like?’ “
For her colleagues at the cancer registry, the diagnosis “was like a punch in the stomach,” said her friend Alan Sheridan. “Of course, right away I looked at the statistics.”
Hodgkin’s is “highly curable” if diagnosed and treated early, Sheridan found.
For six months, Blankenship endured chemotherapy treatments, delivered through a port in her chest. A small army of relatives and friends rallied to lift her spirits and help care for her children.
After the treatments, she learned the tumor was still active. In fact, it had grown larger. “I was stunned,” Blankenship said. “Just devastated. They were supposed to cure me. Why didn’t it work? Why?”
No one knew. Now, her only hope was more intensive chemotherapy followed by a bone marrow transplant. Her odds of survival were less than 50 percent.
At Sutter Cancer Center doctors harvested healthy stem cells from Blankenship’s blood and preserved them. They then delivered very high doses of chemotherapy to destroy her bone marrow. Afterward, they infused her cells back into her body, in hopes that they would grow, free of cancer.
Dr. Michael Carroll, director of Sutter’s blood and bone marrow transplantation program, said the process is so harrowing that about 5 percent of patients never make it out of the hospital.
“I was absolutely petrified,” Blankenship said. “I knew that this was going to be an intense battle.”
To prevent infection, Blankenship was kept in isolation for more than three weeks. She suffered gut-wrenching complications, including damage to the lining of her intestinal tract, mouth and throat that made it difficult to eat, drink or even swallow.
She recalls asking herself, “Am I going to make it out of here?”
She did, with help from relatives, her boyfriend, Stephen Boll, and her colleagues. Blankenship was overwhelmed with gifts, including an iPod she programmed with music from the Cranberries to James Taylor, baby-sitting offers and words of encouragement. Workmates persuaded administrators to allow them to donate vacation hours to Blankenship to ease her financial burden.
“During the first five minutes after the e-mail went out, 200 hours had been donated,” said Sheridan.
“I never realized I had so many people who cared about me,” Blankenship said.
For her 40th birthday, Blankenship got the best gift imaginable. She was released from the hospital. She emerged, she said, with a new perspective on life.
“It’s sheer joy to just watch my kids play,” she said. “Every moment that I am alive is the best moment of my life.”
She still faces a difficult road. The chemotherapy shrank the tumor, but failed to deliver a knockout blow. A tiny red mark on Blankenship’s chest targets the spot where she gets radiation five days a week.
“We’re optimistic but guarded,” said Carroll, her doctor. “We have to wait and see how she responds over the coming months.”
Blankenship has returned to work, part time, satisfying her craving for “something that feels normal,” she said.
“Della comes in every day with a twinkle in her eye, and she always has a smile,” said her boss, Steve Fuchslin. “It’s so inspiring. But it’s also very difficult, because none of us knows how this will end.”
Curled up on the couch at home on a recent afternoon, Blankenship considered her odds. Data suggest it’s an uphill battle.
For once, though, Blankenship will ignore the numbers.
“No matter what the statistics say, I am going to live my life,” she said. “I want to see my kids grow up and graduate from high school and get married. I can see a future. I’m not done yet.”
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