It was late summer 2008 when Linda Greathouse began seeing a new doctor. “My primary physician left shortly after I became his patient and an interim, Dr. Ana Mihalcea, in Olympia, was to be his replacement for the summer,” Linda says.

Linda’s doctor noticed she was wheezing during her visit and took an X-ray, but it didn’t show anything. “At the time, I didn’t know why,” Linda says, “but she did a series of MRI and CT scans – six or seven of them. And she wasn’t saying why.”

The radiologist who performed the tests knew and told Linda that her doctor was looking for cancer.

That day, Linda learned she had cancer in two places: one tumor on her lung, and another on her spine. Without further tests however, her doctor couldn’t tell her what type of cancer she had.

Finding a cancer center

With a referral for a local oncologist in hand, Linda and her husband Donn decided that they’d rather seek treatment in Seattle. She wasn’t a smoker and she wanted the best treatment she could find. Donn found Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Linda began seeing Dr. Renato Martins, a general oncologist at SCCA who is also the Medical Director of Thoracic/Head and Neck Oncology at UW Medical Center.

Seattle Cancer Care Alliance physicians work as a team in order to give their patients the best care possible. Martins evaluated Linda’s cancer and consulted with Dr. Michael Mulligan, a leader in cardiothoracic surgery at UW Medical Center who has performed hundreds of lung transplants and thousands of other thoracic surgeries. Linda had a PET scan (positron emission tomography) to determine the extent of her cancer. Martins and Mulligan decided that Linda should then have a biopsy using interventional radiology techniques to determine what type of cancer she had so they’d know how to treat it. A CT-guided biopsy of the tumor on her spine revealed that Linda had Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer that had metastasized to her spine. Due to its location and stage, surgery was not going to be an option for Linda’s treatment.

Treatment in a clinical trial

Linda’s son Andy had been researching lung cancer treatments on the internet and learned about the power of clinical trials and how patients who participate in them receive the best known therapies available.

Dr. Martins enrolled Linda in a clinical trial treating her with bevacizumab and erlotinib. Bevacizumab (Avastin) is a man-made antibody that targets a molecule needed to grow new blood vessels. The antibody attacks this molecule and effectively starves tumor cells by preventing them from forming new blood supplies. Erlotinib (Tarceva) is another medication that inhibits tumor growth by blocking the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase.

Within four weeks, the tumors were no longer visible in scans and Linda’s bone had begun to grow back where the cancer had eaten it away.

This was great news. Bevacizumab, however, has side effects and risks that Linda and Donn decided they didn’t want to take, like blood clots and other bleeding issues. “We decided to drop the medication and just take erlotinib,” Linda says.

No longer part of the clinical trial now, Linda takes erlotinib every day in pill form. She says there are few side effects and there has been no change in her quality of life. She and her husband continue to be distracted by their children and grandchildren, and continue to travel and run their china replacement business. She comes to SCCA every month of so for check-ups and is doing well.

Getting through it

Linda says she credits her primary care physician with “aggressively looking, caring, and finding my cancer as soon as it was found and I'm grateful.” 

Lung cancer is often found very late. Linda was only 64 years old and not really sick.

“The first time you get the shock with a diagnosis of cancer, you don’t do anything,” Linda says. You let people lead you.

Linda brought friends and family with her to every appointment at SCCA. “We’d go out to dinner afterward or have pedicures. We worked hard at making my appointments fun. We did (and do) a lot of laughing,” Linda says. “That's the reality of the day instead of dread or anxiety.”

Linda and Donn have changed a few things in their lives. They gave up sugar and coffee, and take more vitamins and walk more. Most importantly, Linda says, “We make sure we do fun things.”

To heal, Linda says, “It's important to keep stress levels low. Reading that book ‘The Shack’ was very important because I was able to turn it over to God each time I'd get anxious. That book was all about God teaching who he was, how he works, and how we can trust in a very adverse situation.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” she says. “I was afraid of pain, but my nurse friend explained how hospice takes away pain, so I’m not afraid of that anymore.”

Instead, Linda works to help others who’ve received a diagnosis by participating in cancer patient chatroom and providing inspiration and hope to others by sharing her positive experiences at SCCA.

“I want people who read this to be encouraged,” Linda says. “Treatment at SCCA has been wonderful and I expect it to continue. I read about patients who have to wait weeks to get the results of CT scans. We get ours in a few hours. There is so much knowledge under one roof, and Dr. Martins is great. He says we all have a limited time, so go live!”

Linda intends to keep on doing just that.