Maryann's Story

Maryann – Lung cancer survivor

It was pain in her lower back that initially brought Maryann Clayton to the doctor. She was given prescriptions for pain medication and physical therapy.

“PT was great,” Maryann says, “I was more limber, but I still hurt. I got tired of the doctors, medicines, and still no relief. A friend had gotten an MRI for her back problem, so I asked for one as well.”

The radiologist scanned Maryann’s back and what was discovered was anything but a back problem. She had Stage-IV non-small-cell lung cancer. The MRI had found a tumor on her back bone – where her lung cancer had already spread (metastasized).

“I wasn’t surprised,” Maryann says, recalling the diagnosis she received in 2005. She was 62 years old at the time. “My family smoked… my parents, my sister, and me. I had quit in 1998, which gave me a false sense of well being I think. I probably had that cancer for quite awhile. There are so few symptoms until it is advanced. Lung cancer is hard to catch early.”

Maryann’s son Craig went with her to her first doctor’s appointment and after the routine diagnostic tests, “he informed the doctor that he’d already made arrangements for me to have treatment in Seattle,” Maryann recalls. “He’d already been in contact with Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and he brought me over from the Tri Cities just a day after that. It was really nice that he took it right out of my hands,” she says, “because after that diagnosis I was left in a state of ‘what is the next step?’ Do I just lie down and cover myself with a blanket?”

Maryann went to Seattle and she didn’t return home to the Tri Cities for four months. She lived with her son Craig and his family, and he took her to all of her appointments at SCCA.

Because of the advanced stage of her disease, Dr. Renato Martins, her oncologist at SCCA, treated Maryann’s cancer initially with radiation and then chemotherapy. She’s never had surgery of any kind. The radiation was strong medicine. It made Maryann weaker before she got stronger, even making it necessary for her to use a walker and a wheelchair. After she recovered from radiation, Dr. Renato started her on chemotherapy and enrolled her into a clinical trial, and her condition started to swing in a more positive direction. Her tumors began to shrink and she began to feel better.

“I had a 10-day ‘vacation,’ as Dr. Martins calls it, in between treatment regimens,” says Maryann. “During that time, I went on a Caribbean cruise where we swam with dolphins.”

When she returned, she started another clinical trial, which will last for two years. She receives treatment every three weeks and has enjoyed a couple of trips to Hawaii in between.

“I have progressively gotten stronger and stronger,” Maryann says. “The first drug shrunk the lung tumor significantly. The others stay about the same. But I have plenty of energy.”

One of the best parts about being a patient at SCCA, she says, is that she doesn’t feel like a patient; “I feel like a member of the team that is taking care of this cancer,” she says. “They never make me feel rushed when I come to clinic, even if there are four doctors with me at one time, which has made all the difference in the world.”

Maryann may never be rid of her tumors completely, and she knows that. “For now, I’m just holding steady to my routine and enjoying the time I spend with my family.”

April 2007