Do unto others

Tina Reuben was the first patient in one of the few clinical trials for adrenal cancer and hopes that her involvement can help others with the rare disease live longer.

5:00 AM

Author | Mary Clare Fischer

Credit: Erica Bass

 

When a doctor told Tina Reuben she had cancer, she was alone.

It was May 2020. Five days had passed since Tina had checked into the emergency department at University of Michigan Health-West, her potas­sium levels extremely low, her blood pressure so high she'd worried about having a stroke.

She had tested positive for COVID-19 and was in isolation, waiting as her providers investigated whether something else was going on with her body. The hospitalist on call had gone home for the night by the time the results of Tina's CT scan came through. But he came back in at 9:30 p.m. to tell her about the large tumor he'd seen on her imaging.

The mass was an adrenocortical carcinoma, a cancer in a gland on top of the kidney.

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This cancer is so rare that it's diagnosed in about one in every million people in the country. Clinical trials — research that tests novel strategies and techniques to prevent, detect and treat disease — for adrenocortical carcinomas are scarce. And even if these tumors are treated successfully, the likelihood that they will recur is high.

Tina called her husband, Terence, over FaceTime to tell him what was going on. Visitors weren't allowed at the hospital, and it was frus­trating that Terence couldn't hold Tina like he had through more than 20 years of marriage.

"It was a horrible experience to be by yourself to find this out," Tina said.

But, later that night, the Bible verse Jeremiah 29:11 came to her: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

Tina wrote the scripture on the whiteboard that hung on her door. When her nurse, Cassie McAl­ister, R.N., came in, she noticed the words. Tina works as a physical therapist at Mary Free Bed, a rehabilitation hospital that's part of U-M Health-West, and McAlister knew her as the PT who could always meet a patient on their level. McAlister walked over and erased every reference of "you" in the Bible verse, changing each one to "Tina."

"It's personal," McAlister told her. "He knows the plans he has for you, Tina, not just anybody."

A neighbor of Tina's eventually turned the personalized verse into a painting that hangs in Tina's home in Grand Rapids. She looks at it often, marveling at how true its words have felt over the past two years.

SEE ALSO: Getting a second opinion on adrenal cancer

Godsend after godsend has shown up for Tina — from thoughtful prayers to an opportunity to participate in a clinical trial at the Rogel Cancer Center — as she's persevered through treatment. She's determined to be one of the few people who can say they don't have adrenal cancer anymore. But she'd also like to make it a less elite club.

"There's not a lot of hope for some people with this," she said. "So if I get benefit out of the clinical trial, wonderful, but if it helps somebody else, even better."

Faith and science

Ryan Hop, D.O., had never seen anything like the tumor that was growing inside Tina. But the U-M Health-West physician thought that someone at the Rogel Cancer Center, two hours east, might have.

He was right. Gary Hammer, M.D., Ph.D., the director of the endocrine oncology program at Rogel, is one of the preemi­nent experts on adrenal cancer in the world. The physicians con­nected and, with Tina's agreement, decided it would be best for her to continue her cancer care at Rogel — starting with surgery to remove the tumor.

There is very little research out there for rare cancers in which a trial develops that you can enroll a patient. That's why we have built our program up to facilitate a research platform to get new therapies to patients.
Gary Hammer, M.D., Ph.D.

The choice paid off: Surgeon Barbra Miller, M.D., was able to remove Tina's tumor cleanly with no complications. She may have been aided by the prayers of the Reubens' minister, who drove all the way from Grand Rapids to Ann Arbor to walk around the medical campus during Tina's surgery after he said he felt called to do so.

There was more to be done. Unlike most adrenal cancers, Tina's tumor was diagnosed before it had broken through the thick capsule that encases the adrenal gland or spread to other organs. Yet it was also large and growing quickly, a sign that it could re­turn even after surgery. So Hammer recommended further treat­ment to increase Tina's chances of staying cancer-free long-term.

Tina had a decision to make. She could receive radiation. Or she could participate in a new clinical trial at Rogel that was testing whether a combination of IV chemotherapy and a medication called mitotane was more effective than mitotane alone in treating adrenal cancer.

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"There is very little research out there for rare cancers in which a trial develops that you can enroll a patient," Hammer said. "That's why we have built our program up to facilitate a research platform to get new therapies to patients."

Tina opted to be part of the trial.

"I believe in science," she said. "I wanted to be part of the trial, if not to help myself, to help someone else in the future, because this is a horrible, aggressive cancer."

Yet the trial hadn't started enrolling patients because of the pandemic, and weeks were passing quickly.

Credit: Photo by Leisa Thompson

Tina's neighbor transformed the Bible verse her nurse had personalized on her hospital white board into a colorful reminder of how far she's come.

Credit: Photo by Leisa Thompson

Tina's pastor was one of the people who went above and beyond to support Tina during her cancer journey.

Credit: Photo by Leisa Thompson

Tina's husband, Terence, remains a crucial part of her support system.

Tina is now back at work as a physical therapist at a University of Michigan-Health-West facility.

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Hammer called a meeting of a Rogel tumor board, a multi­disciplinary group of experts that weighs in on treatment plans for cancer patients, to confirm that Tina could wait up to 12 weeks after her surgery to start additional treatment.

But the urge to be proactive was becoming too strong for Tina to ignore.

She decided she was going to start radiation if she didn't hear about the clinical trial that very day. A few hours later, she received the call she'd been hoping for. She was going to be patient No. 1 on the trial.

"It's like everything fell into place the way it was supposed to," Tina said. "I don't really believe in coincidences, and neither does science. But I've been so, so blessed."

The empowered patient

Over the next few months, Tina drove from Grand Rapids to Ann Arbor to undergo several days of chemotherapy four separate times.

Clumps of her hair started falling out. Her brain turned foggy, her gut nauseous, but she kept going.

"She felt terrible, but she kept saying that if this clinical trial is going to help someone else, she was going to do it," Terence said.

Amid the roiling side effects, Tina did research on her disease.

"I'm just one of those people that needs to know everything I possibly can do," Tina said. "The numbers are the numbers. They don't say which side you land on, and I've decided I'm going to land on the side that survives."

She shows up to her Rogel appointments with a large pad of paper and a lot of questions. ("Tina worries that she asks too many questions," said Beth Hesseltine, N.P., an advanced prac­tice nurse for the endocrine oncology program at Rogel, "but, in fact, I enjoy talking to her because she has such good questions.") Terence keeps a spreadsheet of her lab tests, highlighting values that are outliers or trends.

SEE ALSO: Cross country journey to treat adrenal cancer

"What I love about navigating the health care system this way is they're open to this," Terence said, noting that the couple's experience with health care in South Africa, from which they emigrated, was very different. "They want to make the patient feel in control of their health."

"Health care is more and more of a collaboration between a doctor and the patient," Hammer said. "This is particularly true in rare diseases, where there are not many options available and where patients are appropriately empowered to be active partici­pants in their care.

"And Tina does exemplify the empowered patient," he added, "who's advocating not only for herself but for the very field and for all patients with adrenal cancer by spreading awareness."

On Oct. 28, 2020, Tina celebrated her 50th birthday. A few months before, she wasn't sure if she'd still be alive. Although she'll be on mitotane for several more years, she's currently cancer-free and back to working full-time. McAlister calls her a "walking miracle."

"No evidence of disease today doesn't mean there won't be something tomorrow," Tina said. "But I do believe God has a plan for me."

Resources

Learn: rogelcancercenter.org/clinical-trials

Find: rogelcancercenter.org/clinical-trials/find-clinical-trials

Call: Cancer AnswerLine at 800-865-1125


More Articles About: Cancer Care Adrenal Cancer Cancer Research Chemotherapy Metabolism, Endocrinology & Diabetes
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