After being diagnosed with stage four cancer, John Graham is more than happy to have 2023 in his rear view and thanks to the PA Hospital he is feeling great again and enjoying life to the fullest.
John, a retired policeman, who served three decades in Townsville and in the Redlands, was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, got covid-19 twice, pneumonia and suffered a non-STEMI heart attack all within a six-month period in 2023.
His said the diagnosis was a bit of shock at first but he relieved when his treatment began at the PA and he was told by a friend in Melbourne who was a doctor that he had the best oncology hospital in Australia to look after him his care has included a clinical trial and he has had an amazing response.
“I just started to feel unwell in the beginning of 2022. I was playing golf a lot and just at the end of a round I was just not feeling the best down my left side,” John said.
“I was thinking it's a heart attack, they did some blood tests which came back fine. My doctor thought it might be a broken rib or torn muscles, so I got sent for a lot of ultrasounds, x-rays, and scans.
“I was doing tests all the time after that and I said to him my chest is just not getting better, so I went to the Redland Hospital and met their director of medicine. I got a biopsy taken in the neck and she said I’ve got a lot of funny b-cells.
“They did a biopsy on the sacrum and a week later they took a biopsy of the bone marrow. I got a phone call a week or so later saying basically get back here and they told me you've got a non-Hodgkin’s spots come up on the PET scan, I had them all over my body.”
The PA put John on an established cancer treatment and a drug usually given once a patient is in remission through a clinical trial.
“I saw the lovely people at PA’s 2C cancer ward who said we’re going to start you on this drug R-CHOP and then Kasia and the clinical trial team said we’d also like to have you on this trial because we’ve seen all your records and we can’t understand why you’ve got cancer because there is no underlying ailments,” he said.
“All your blood work shows there’s nothing there, so we think you’d be ideal for this extra drug that we normally give after remission kicks in.
“Every couple of weeks I was doing one of either the R-CHOP or the trial drug. They did a PET scan after the first round of R-CHOP and my bones were basically as clean as anything. The doctors said if we didn’t know otherwise, we’d technically say you’re in remission right now.
“My mum died from an esophageal cancer, my wife's had breast cancer, as well my sister has had breast cancer. When I came here the good thing was right from the start, they told me you are not in this hospital to do pain management, we're not here to reduce your pain or make you more comfortable during end of life cafe, we're here to get the cancer out of your body and throw it away.”
John’s been blown away by the level of professionalism he’s received and seen from the PA’s staff.
“Kasia and all the doctors and nurses are very caring and take the time to tell you what things mean and put them in plain English so that you can understand everything. They bring their technical terms down to be as laymen as possible. It’s reassuring,” he said.
“They must see a million patients. They haven’t seen you for three months and you walk in and they’re all so friendly it’s like they saw you the day before.
“When I had my heart attack, Dr Connor and his team in cardiology, were also exceptional.”
