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Stem Cell News
Cancer fought with
stem cells
Burnside man’s cancer treated
with stem cells harvested from his own bone marrow
By SANDY MICKELSON,
Messenger staff writer
BURNSIDE — Daymon Peterson says he is healthy today
and back to work because of the stem cell treatment he
received at Indiana University to combat his cancer.
He’s certain the treatment saved his life.
Peterson is one of those Iowans who would benefit from
the stem cell proposal signed by Gov. Chet Culver on
Wednesday. It was passed by the Senate on Feb. 14 and
by the House on Feb. 22.
In voting for the bill, Sen. Daryl Beall, D-Fort
Dodge, said, ‘‘When this legislation is signed
into law, Iowans will no longer be forced to go out of
state for the treatments and cures developed using
stem cell research.’’
At that time, Dr. Mark Anderson, a University of Iowa
researcher, said, ‘‘The kinds of research that
we’re talking about that will be enabled by this new
legislation is the kind of research that Iowans need
most to get better.’’
Peterson knows first-hand how stem cell treatment can
work. His story takes a year out of his life and sent
him to Indiana University to be treated by Dr.
Lawrence Einhorn, who treated bicycling champion Lance
Armstrong.
One day in February last year, Peterson went home from
work at Electrolux in Webster City ‘‘with
horrendous back pain’’ on his lower left side.
‘‘I’ve never been sick a day in my life, except
I had my tonsils out when I was 10,’’ he said.
‘‘I do mechanic work. I had a little pain the
morning and thought I had picked up something wrong.
When I got home I could hardly talk.’’
That pain turned out to be tumor the size of a
grapefruit leaning against the right kidney.
‘‘They found the tumor right away, but nobody
could figure out where the pain was coming from,’’
Diane Peterson said.
Her husband moved from Hamilton Hospital in Webster
City to Mary Greeley Hospital in Ames, and ended up at
Methodist Hospital in Des Moines. There doctors put in
a stent to bypass the kidney, stopping the pain within
hours.
By this time, Peterson had been hospitalized six days
and lost 15 to 20 pounds because all he could keep
down was ice chips. He was sent home to ‘‘get
healthy’’ for surgery.
Until then, no one referred to the tumor as more than
a mass.
‘‘My third CT scan before I came home to get well,
they did a biopsy,’’ Peterson said. ‘‘That’s
where we found out it could be a seminoma tumor.’’
A seminoma tumor can be removed with surgery; a non-seminoma
tumor has to be shrunk with chemotherapy or radiation.
‘‘The tumor was the size of a grapefruit,’’
Diane Peterson said. ‘‘It was all dead cells and
debris. On the biopsy they had a hard time finding any
live cells. There was very little live tissue.’’
There was enough live tissue, however, and on Feb. 23,
Peterson was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
The slow-growing tumor had to be removed, but Peterson
had to wait until his oncology surgeon was able to
line up a vascular surgeon and a urologist to be part
of the surgery team. He also had to wait until a large
piece of Gore-Tex would arrive to be used if part of
his colon had to be removed. The Gore-Tex had been
back-ordered.
Peterson was told the surgery could take from four to
10 hours — the longer would mean things didn’t go
so well.
The tumor had grown around the vena cava, the artery
about the size of the thumb that runs down to the
legs. Instead of cutting it out, however, the doctors
were able to scrape it free. It just took a while.
‘‘About 8 o’clock at night, I came out,’’
Peterson said. ‘‘The first I remember is it’s
dark and I thought, ‘Oh, God, what did I
lose?’’’
Although the tumor had been wrapped around the vena
cava, it wasn’t attached to any organs. Nine inches
of colon were removed — that’s all.
In 1994, Peterson’s mother, Patricia, died of lung
cancer after having chemotherapy.
‘‘I was scared to death of chemotherapy,’’ he
said. ‘‘I watched my mom go through it — it was
just horrible watching her go through that.’’
But, all it takes is one tiny little cell that breaks
away from the tumor for cancer to start growing
elsewhere. Doctors gave him a month to think about it,
he said, ‘‘but I didn’t have a choice.’’
He breezed through the chemotherapy that he had
feared. His hair fell out, but he didn’t get sick,
and he maintained a good appetite. Three months later,
he’s thinking ‘‘I’m getting through
this,’’ and the oncologist is saying he’s doing
well.
He finished chemo at the end of June and follow-up
appointments in September went well.
‘‘The doctor was confident that everything was
fine, so I’m confident,’’ Peterson said.
‘‘That’s what you want to hear.’’
Two weeks after his Sept. 6 checkup, his back started
hurting at work — a dull ache. He said ‘‘I
thought I had picked up something wrong.’’ The
pain continued to increase.
Diane Peterson said she kept telling him ‘‘with
your history, it’s important to see the
doctor.’’
‘‘So now I have a history,’’ he said.
It was 10-year-old Mason who suggested the cancer
could have come back.
On Peterson’s 41st birthday, a CT scan showed
enlarge lymph nodes on the left side. The cancer had
moved.
Back in Des Moines, his oncologist said he couldn’t
deal with this kind of cancer and offered to refer
Peterson to Indiana University’s Dr. Lawrence
Einhorn, the doctor who treated bicycling sensation
Lance Armstrong.
‘‘We had one shot at this,’’ Peterson said.
‘‘If we can afford it, if insurance will pay for
it.’’ He sighed. ‘‘My hair had just grown back
and I could finally have a sip of beer.’’
The call was made, and Einhorn agreed to take his
case.
‘‘He’s the best in the world,’’ Peterson
said. ‘‘He said, ‘Oh, I’ll cure you. We’ll
use a stem cell transplant.’’
Diane Peterson remembers saying, ‘‘‘He had
chemotherapy once and it came back. What makes you
think it would work the second time?’ He said,
‘I’ll knock you down to nothing.’’’
And that’s exactly what happened.
Peterson’s own stem cells were harvested, and
chemotherapy knocked his immune system down to
nothing.
‘‘Chemotherapy basically is poison and they’re
putting it in your veins,’’ Diane Peterson said.
His white cells and red cells were exhausted, he had
to concentrate on staying alive. At his lowest point,
his own stem cells were put back into his system, and
after a week or so started to heal his body.
Adult stem cells, harvested from bone marrow, will
recreate only white cells, red blood cells and
platelets.
‘‘The stem cells looked like tomato soup,’’
Diane Peterson said. ‘‘They spin the stem cells
out and put your own blood back in you.’’
Sent home over the Christmas holidays for rest and
recuperation, Peterson said he could almost feel the
minute the stem cells started to work. Soon he felt
well — well enough that he wondered if he even
needed the second go-round.
But he went back to Indianapolis for the second round,
the round Einhorn said would kill the cancer.
At this point, what Diane Peterson remembers most is
the smell of the preservative with the stem cells. It
can leave the body only through the lungs, being
breathed out. She admits to sleeping in a different
room until that part of her husband’s treatment was
over.
‘‘The mental and emotional side of this is harder
to handle than the physical,’’ she said.
In little more than a year after first being diagnosed
with testicular cancer, Peterson feels as good as he
ever did and he recently returned to work. His hair
fell out a second time and is just now growing in —
it’s as soft as, well, as a baby’s hair. Still, he
wears hats almost all the time.
The worst part of the fight remaining is facing a
half-million-dollar medical bill. Insurance paid for
almost everything, but with a bill that large, there
is always something else to pay.
But, life goes on for the Peterson family. For them,
those are wonderful words to hear.
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