Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2007 / Escanaba woman gets new lease on life via adult stem-cell transplant
Escanaba woman gets new lease on life via adult stem-cell transplant
Angela Johnson of The U.P. Catholic
Published November 16, 2007
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Maxine Trombley | The U.P. Catholic
Maxine Trombley,of Escanaba, undergoes an adult-stem cell collection procedure at the Mayo Clinic in October 2004. Transplanting her own new adult stem cells into her bloodstream has given her a newchange at life since she has been diagnosed with multiplemyeloma, a disease for which there is no cure. |
Escanaba — Fifty-year-old Maxine Trombley of Escanaba is a woman who strives to capture all of life's zeal.
She and her husband Alan are the parents of two teenage sons. She has 26 years of service working as one of the few females in the maintenance department of the local paper mill, where she drives a fork lift and also serves on the fire response team and as a medical first responder. She and her girlfriends are avid softball players and enjoy bowling, golfing, gardening and deer hunting.
So when, three years ago, Maxine sat in her doctor's examination room expecting the physician to open the door and tell her she had cancer, she wasn't going to take the news sitting down. In fact, she told her husband that she would simply refuse to hear the diagnosis.
"I'm not having it," she told him. "I am not going to sit here and listen to them tell me that."
During the summer of 2004 she said she'd been feeling somewhat tired and a bit out of breath. She also noticed that her ribs and hip joints were sore. But nothing led her to believe that something serious was wrong with her.
The doctors did deliver the worst of news, however. The diagnosis was multiple myeloma, a form of cancer that begins in plasma cells. There is no cure for the disease.
Within 48 hours of being diagnosed, Maxine underwent several agonizing tests and some 17 X-rays at both Marquette General Hospital and OSF St. Francis Hospital in Escanaba.
"You can't even absorb that type of information," she said. "I was in shock and a state of disbelief."
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Catholic teaching
The Catholic Church:
Supports stem-cell research and therapy utilizing stem cells harvested from adults adn umbilical-cord blood.
Opposes embryonic-stem cell research because the human embryo is destroyed to harvest the stem cells. | The recommended treatment was adult stem-cell transplantation — something Maxine said she'd heard little about and had no real understanding of.
Now she says the treatment turned out to be the answer to all of her prayers.
In the months that followed Maxine went to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where she first underwent an adult-stem cell collection process. She was given a medication that allowed her body to increase its production of stem cells. Then, over the course of five to six days, those new cells were extracted from her body. For Maxine, an astounding 8 million new adult stem cells were collected. The collection process was followed by two days of high-dose chemotherapy that aimed to kill all of the cancer cells in her bloodstream.
Finally, 4 million of Maxine's extracted stem cells were injected back into her body. The remaining cells were frozen for use later. She spent time recovering at the hospital's Gift of Life Transplant House and was determined to return to Escanaba in time for Christmas that year, which she did.
Though it was a long process, Maxine said acceptance of her condition did come. She said she held on to her faith like a lifeline. She attributes much of her success to the Gift of Life Transplant House, which provides people going through similar situations a group setting in which to recover and build up a support system. Members of her parish family of St. Anthony of Padua in Wells were also encouraging, she said.
"I just keep thinking one step at a time," she said.
After the initial transplant, Maxine returned to work full-time on March 1, 2005. Raising her sons, Grant, now 20, and Garret, 18, and enjoying family and friends are what she lives for.
"Since the diagnosis I am more driven to capture the highlights of life," she said. "I pray to see my sons settled, married, and would love to live to see grandchildren. I try to do things that most people hope to make time to get around to doing." But she added that "cancer never leaves your mind for a full day."
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The Science of Stem Cells: Finding Cures and Protecting Life
 Watch the video
Michigan diocesan bishops, as teachers of the faith, have launched an unprecedented education program to teach the Catholic faithful about the relationship between stem-cell research and the Catholic teaching on human life. | Stem-cell transplantation is the answer and it will be the answer to a lot of prayers," she said. "It can rescue you to build you back from nothing." She said she wishes that she had her own umbilical cord blood and that she'd known to keep her sons' umbilical cord blood for them.
Two years after the initial diagnosis, Maxine is again taking medication to try to control the amount of cancer cells in her body, which is increasing. She has taken time off from work and anticipates having to return to Mayo Clinic in February to have the remaining half of the extracted stem cells injected into her system. It is hoped that the treatment will again rescue her ailing body.
Since the initial chemotherapy, Maxine's own stem cells are no longer viable. After she receives the remaining half of her own previously collected cells, she may be a candidate for donor cells and is hopeful that technology will make it possible for her to live the rest of her life cancer-free.
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