When you had the opportunity to continue to live, fight for your family, your children, the opportunity comes, you got to do it. Mr. Pinckney’s treatment at Mayo Clinic dates back to 2016. At that time, he received an Atoloco stem cell transplant for his follicular lymphoma. And he was in remission for
A good seven years. And unfortunately in 2023 his lymphoma recurred. You’re going to the appointments like I’ve done this before, like I don’t want to do this. And then we meet with our college is, no, you don’t want to be here. But yeah, this is where we are, it’s early, we’re going
To do this, we’re going to do this. But I think you’re a candidate for cart, my community physician, I mean, for him to say, hey, we not equipped at this time to handle that. So we’re going to send you to Mayo where they can take care of you. I think that’s a great,
That’s a great collaboration partnership. Regardless of where you’re at and you’re working at, when you go through things the first time you learn, I know that science has changed in the health field. Things have gotten better and I was looking forward to being a candidate for this Cart therapy.
Cart cell therapy stands for Chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy. And what it’s done is basically this T cell is re engineered in a way where it becomes more effective in identifying and eliminating the target, which in this case is the follicular informa. Mr. Pinckney was evaluated.
He was found to be a good candidate for carticel therapy and at that time, the recommendation was to proceed with that in coordination with his primary oncologist, which we worked very closely with, our community oncologist here in Jacksonville. We both agreed that this was the best course of action for Mr.
Pinckney to make sure that we can treat him with the most appropriate therapy. Cancers, That is a huge word. Or let’s say 30, 40 years ago, that was a death sentence word. But look where we’ve come six years ago. Cart was in its prototype stages, but who knew?
We would walk this walk again. And the prototype will be the very cancer that my husband has. That’s a blessing within itself just to know that other people are going to be blessed right here in our backyard. That’s amazing. Having a treatment that can change lives in your hometown is powerful.
You know, you’re the person that’s going through it, but you have other people that can benefit from it and through your journey. And be able to have a voice to be able to tell them that it will be fine. It’s okay. Just trust the process, trust the science.
And when a patient that’s going through something that is very, very important to have that family environment, that family field. I believe in the bells that ring here every day. I believe in the doctors walking the halls every day, the nurses down to the beautification staff. Everyone that I’ve ever come in
Contact here is more than a job. It’s a passion. And when passion meets illness, it becomes sound for this to be in my hometown, for me to be able to go home and come back. That’s a blessing. And I feel good about the future of not only Mayo but those patients.
The future patient, the patient that’s currently going through the process. And thank God that cart tea was an option for me. I’m very grateful to me and my family. That’s a blessing.
