Vol. 30, No. 3
Acrobat PDF version of Growing Together also available
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| Dayton Children's Focus |
| A Survivor's Story |
Long-term pediatric cancer survivor benefits from Dayton Children’s
follow-up care
Greg Woolley, 28, played sports all through high school. So when he started having knee pain while a student at the University of Dayton, he thought he had been playing too hard. As his pain worsened, Greg decided to get his knee evaluated by a sports medicine doctor who his brother had gone to in high school.
Dayton Children’s long-term follow-up clinic for cancer survivors was one of the first in the country. Greg is shown with Emmett Broxson, MD, medical director of hematology/oncology at Dayton Children’s.
"The knee doctor recognized it was something more and sent me to an orthopedic oncologist at University Hospital in Cleveland,” says Greg, who was 21 at the time.
Greg was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma – a type of bone cancer that had grown around his knee and spread to both lungs. The tumor was entwined around the nerve and blood vessels of the knee and meant that he couldn’t have surgery to remove it.
Greg was at risk of losing his leg and possibly his life. His physician recommended that Greg come to The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton to have chemotherapy to try to shrink the tumor and pull it away from the other parts of his knee.
“Greg’s chances of survival were very small,” says Emmett Broxson, MD, medical director of hematology/ oncology at Dayton Children’s. “The type of cancer that Greg had is seen primarily in adolescents and young adults and is treated most commonly by a pediatric oncologist at a children’s hospital.”
Dayton Children’s is home to the Comprehensive Care Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders and is one of just a few pediatric programs in the country approved by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer. The center has pediatric specialists who work as a team to provide complete and compassionate state-of-the-art care for patients with cancer and blood disorders.
“As a 21-year-old, I was disappointed when I heard I was going to have to undergo my chemotherapy at a children’s hospital,” Greg says. “However, going to Dayton Children’s turned out to be one of the best things that happened for me, because of how incredible the staff and care were.”
Once Greg came to Dayton Children’s, he had a medical evaluation. As a result of the evaluation, doctors learned that Greg’s cancer had spread to his lungs. He started chemotherapy almost immediately.
Dayton Children’s is part of the Children’s Oncology Group, a national research group, that focuses on the latest advances in children’s pediatric oncology, Dr. Broxson says. This affiliation allows Dayton Children’s to be at the forefront in cancer care for children.
“The patient in Dayton receiving chemotherapy is treated the same as a child being treated anywhere else in the country,” Dr. Broxson says. “Greg was treated on a clinical trial available at that time.”
“There was such a contrast in the care I received at Dayton Children’s compared with the adult hospital. If anything went wrong, they were there to attend to me immediately.”
After seven weeks of treatment, the spots on Greg’s lungs had not cleared. Jeffrey Christian, MD, pediatric surgeon at Dayton Children’s, performed surgery on Greg’s left lung to remove the remaining spots.
A month later, Greg went to Cleveland to have knee surgery. The doctor in Cleveland was able to perform limb salvage surgery because the chemo had shrunk the tumor in Greg’s knee, pulling it away from the nerves and blood vessels. He replaced Greg’s knee and except for the scar, it’s almost impossible to tell he had surgery.
Greg, now seven years from diagnosis, is considered cured. He returns to Dayton Children’s annually for evaluations for complications of his therapy. He is seen in the long-term follow-up clinic at Dayton Children’s.
“Our long-term follow-up clinic or late effects clinic was one of the first in the country and has been available to patients since the 1980s,” Dr. Broxson says. “As more children are cured of their cancer, the Children’s Oncology Group and the Institute of Medicine have emphasized the importance of these evaluations.”
Today, Greg is married and has twin daughters Gabrielle and Grace. The family lives in Jackson Center, Ohio.
“Dayton Children’s staff provided the care that allowed me to survive,” Greg says. “All of the staff are so warm and caring. My family and I feel blessed that Dayton Children’s was there to care for us.”
Table of Contents |
HealthBeat
Are you ready to hit the road?
Lawn mowing:
not for kids
Start early to prevent skin cancer
Features
Intensive caring
at its best
- Pediatric intensive care unit
- Wallace Critical Care Complex
- Be a hero for children campaign
A Survivor's Story
- Dayton Children's Comprehensive Care Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders
- Dayton Children's expands partnership with Middletown
- New specialists at Dayton Children's
- Serving you better
- Free e-news from Dayton Children's
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