By Khalida Sarwari
For Joan Banich, life-or-death decisions have become a frequent occurrence since she was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer nine years ago. This week, she is considering undergoing a clinical trial for a new drug in hopes of beating her cancer once and for all.
“I’m really excited,” the 51-year-old Campbell woman said of the drug rigosertib. “It’s a drug that has already proven successful for pancreatic cancer.”
While Banich is meeting with her doctors to discuss her next steps, she is also preparing for the Light the Night Walk, a two-mile walk held annually across the country by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to raise awareness of blood cancers and money for research and support of patients and their families.
Banich’s personal goal is to raise $1,000.
“I’m almost there, but I want to extend that and raise even more,” she said.
Banich was diagnosed with myelodysplatstic syndrome, a disease of the blood and bone marrow, in September 2003. She was 42 years old with a 10-year-old daughter. At the time, her doctors said she had only five to six years to live.
“It was a very daunting experience to be told I have a disease that normally afflicts 72-year-old men,” said Banich.
There were no FDA- approved drug treatments for the disease; doctors told her the only potential cure was a transplant. Banich decided to wait and weigh her options as she waited for a donor.
Two years later, Banich started undergoing chemo treatment, a process that kills bad cells through a high dose of medication. She tried Vidasia and Dacogen and soon after that went into remission for about 2½ years.
But then in 2011 she relapsed, and her doctors told her that her only option for treatment was a bone marrow transplant. She took a leave of absence from Cisco, where she had worked since 2000 with a brand strategy marketing group, and the morning after watching her daughter walk across the stage to receive her high school diploma, Banich boarded a plane and headed to Seattle, Wash., for a stem cell transplant.
She underwent radiation and chemotherapy that wiped out her entire immune system and then was given new cells from a 22-year-old German woman. Following the procedure, she rented a condo in Seattle and lived there for the next four months. The recovery process took about a year and involved a mild bout with graft-versus-host disease, a complication that arises when donor cells attack original cells.
During this time, Banich also kicked her fear of needles and blood with hypnotherapy. Though it still terrifies her, she has learned to tolerate it better.
“I don’t look,” she said, with a laugh.
Throughout the battle, Banich has leaned heavily on her husband, Dave, a video and event producer for corporate companies, and her daughter, Atley, a 19-year-old student at the UC-Davis.
“I wasn’t sure I’d be around for her teenage years to guide her through that,” Banich said. “I was fortunate to have the drugs that were funded through [Leukemia and Lymphoma Society] research to allow me to be there for her graduation. Now I want to be around for grandkids.”
This year, Banich had another unexpected relapse as her white cell count dropped, making her susceptible to infections. At one point, she was in the hospital for 34 days. She remains hopeful, however, for a cure.
For now, she is resting those hopes on rigosertib, announced on Sept. 20 by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, targeted not only to MDS, but to a patient similar to Banich, who has relapsed after undergoing treatments and transplants. But the clinical trial for the drug carries a hefty price tag: $12 million for just a couple of hundred patients.
“There’s definitely a need to fund that research so they can find better treatments and potentially find a cure,” Banich said. “I really want to get the community involved in finding the cure for blood cancers.”
The Light the Night walk takes place Oct. 20 at the Discovery Meadow in San Jose. Pre-walk festivities begin at 5 p.m., followed by the walk at 7 p.m.
For more information, visit www.lightthenight.org:80/sj.
