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A Mother Daughter Journey: Lillie Tanksley & Tara Stallings

"My mama has always been there for me. This time, it’s my turn."

Lillie Tanksley, 65, has always been good about getting her annual check-ups, and was feeling fine on the day, two years ago, when her physician told her he was sending her to an oncologist. She says the news took her breath away.

She didn’t have long to think about her diagnosis: ovarian cancer. She was scheduled for surgery right away.

It wasn’t the first time the Augusta, Georgia, resident and her family had faced cancer. Her daughter, Tara, had been diagnosed with breast cancer five years earlier.

Lillie had been there to help her daughter’s family, including two young children, cope with the emotional toll that cancer invariably inflicts.

Fortunately, Tara was successfully treated through a clinical trial at the MCGHealth Cancer Clinic (Medical College of Georgia). By the time of her mother’s diagnosis, she’d been a breast cancer survivor for five years.

Everyone in her family was very supportive, Lillie recalls, but it was her daughter Tara, who, understandably, knew best what she was going through.

After surgery, Lillie’s oncologist, Dr. Sharad Ghamande of the MCGHealth Cancer Clinic, recommended treatment in a clinical trial.

Dr. Ghamande describes the trial as a “win-win” situation because the control arm was the current standard of care. “This trial gave us the opportunity to use a new drug along with the current standard drugs.”

Lillie says she had some reservations about being in a clinical trial. “I wasn’t sure at first. I didn’t want to be some kind of a guinea pig. But then I looked at my daughter and she said, ‘You can do this Mama. I did it. You can do it.’ ”

“We trusted God and we trusted Dr. Ghamande,” says Tara.

Lillie’s treatment experience went well. She says “they (treatment team) take very good care of you and watch you very closely when you’re in a clinical trial.”

Unfortunately, one year later the cancer spread to her lymph nodes. Again, Dr. Ghamande recommended a clinical trial, this time a Phase II trial. “This trial gave us the chance to try a new drug with exciting preclinical information, and still have the standard drugs in reserve if needed.”

It’s been over a year since Lillie began treatment for the cancer in her lymph nodes. She says she feels good. She’s cut back on her hours at work, but only because her kids wanted her too.

Tara says the shared experience has strengthened her relationship with her mother. Today, she takes her mom to the MCGHealth Cancer Clinic every Tuesday morning for treatment. She’s arranged her work schedule so that she can take and pick her up each week. Sometimes Lillie’s husband of 47 years comes along, but Tara wants to be the one to do this. “My mama has always been there for me,” she says. “This time, it’s my turn.”

photo caption: Lillie Tanksley (L) and daughter Tara Stallings
photo credit: Phil Jones, Medical College of Georgia

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Vicki Riedel’s Story

“At 10 months, my daughter Ansley was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML).”

Overture to a Cure by Vicki Riedel

At 10 months, my daughter Ansley was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). That’s a form of leukemia you don’t want to have at any age.

My husband, Joe, and I went straight from the pediatrician’s office to Egleston Children’s Hospital to meet with George Brumley, then chair of pediatrics at Emory and chief medical officer at Egleston (now part of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta). Brumley was a dear friend, and I knew him well from my development work for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. We trusted him. We knew he would tell us the right thing to do.

We asked him straight out, “If this was your daughter, your child, would you stay here for treatment, or would you go elsewhere?” He examined the options with us, and he felt we were safe in starting treatment for Ansley at Egleston. But Brumley acknowledged that we might have to go to a hospital elsewhere if things took a turn for the worse.

That marked the beginning of an amazing treatment journey for our family that was to stretch over several years. AML is a tough disease that tends not to stay in remission. Bone marrow transplants were still relatively rare in the late 1980s as a curative treatment for AML. Ansley was able to join a clinical trial at Egleston that randomized patients either to chemotherapy or an autologous bone marrow transplant, in which a patient’s own marrow is treated with high-dose chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells and then is reinfused.

She received her transplant during the Christmas season of 1988, but it failed. She relapsed within a month.

Next she started an aggressive course of chemotherapy, and with this approach, she did really well. So well, in fact, that Joe and I started talking about having another child. We saw genetic counselors, who after discussing our situation, encouraged us to go ahead. I got pregnant right away, and the timing turned out to be critical.

Ansley went off treatment in November of 1990. Our son, Joseph, was born in February of 1991. Ansley relapsed in March. We immediately had Joseph tested for bone marrow compatibility with Ansley, and he was a perfect match. That gave us a much, much more viable option for treatment. But we decided to leave Atlanta for the next phase. The reasons for our decision were multiple. Our son, at 4 months old, would be the youngest ever bone marrow donor. Ansley too was so young, only 3 ½, and had already been through so much therapy. We chose to go to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, then the largest center in the world performing bone marrow transplants for both adults and children. Even Brumley said, “You’ve got to go.”

My husband and I had amazing employers, who allowed us to move to Seattle for four months to take care of Ansley. The Atlanta Symphony let me continue to work part-time from the remote location so we could keep our health insurance. My mom went with us. And it turned out so well. Joseph had really rich bone marrow. He was our little hero, and Ansley remained our little star. We got to keep her.

Seeking treatment for Ansley had changed me. I felt that any talents I had around fund-raising should be re-directed to cancer care. My family was so fortunate to have had the financial and emotional wherewithal to go thousands of miles away for the absolute best care for our daughter, but far too many families that I knew could never consider that possibility.

The blessing of having been able to see my daughter grow up has fueled my passion for raising funds for Winship. Ansley, now 21, is a junior at Sewanee, majoring in psychology with plans to study to be an oncology nurse. She volunteers at Camp Sunshine and mentors other children with cancer. She’s here today because of research advances.

Photo caption(s): (L-R) Joseph, Vicki and Ansley Riedel
Photo credit(s): Jack Kearse/Emory University

Today, Vicki Riedel works full-time as a fund-raiser for Emory Winship Cancer Institute. Winship’s vision is to become Georgia’s first National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. Winship treats more than 12,000 cancer patients each year, and the physicians and scientists contribute major research discoveries to advance prevention, early detection and cures. They draw on the talents of people throughout Emory’s School of Medicine, the Rollins School of Public Health, and the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. The Woodruff Foundation, the Georgia Research Alliance, and the Georgia Cancer Coalition are tremendous partners, providing generous support for buildings, labs, and equipment and making it possible to recruit premier physician-scientists.

“Overture to a Cure” is excerpted from Emory Health, Winter 2008-2009, http://whsc.emory.edu/home/publications/health-sciences/emory-health/index.html, and is used with permission from Emory Health Sciences Publications.

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Thinking positively: Doug Russell

“I was not going to let the cancer beat me.”

The first piece of news was ominous: Doug Russell had stage 4 melanoma.

The second was worse: The cancer had spread to his lungs.

“Like everyone who is first diagnosed, I was devastated,” says the building supply company executive from Duluth, Georgia. “But I quickly learned that you’ve got to move past the negative feelings and get into the ready-to-fight stage.”

At first, the fight didn’t go so well: Standard treatments yielded poor results.

So Doug’s physician, Dr. David Lawson at Emory’s Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta, recommended an aggressive series of Interleukin-2 treatments – a therapy that was only available through a clinical trial.

“I wasn’t very familiar with clinical trials,” Doug said, “but I wanted to do anything I could to get better. Plus, having the opportunity to help other people was a strong incentive. I knew that my participation meant I might help save other lives.”

Five years after his first diagnosis, Doug was cancer free. He credits the IL-2 treatments from the clinical trial for his recovery as well as his keeping a positive outlook throughout therapy.

“I didn’t want to know what the side effects might be because I didn’t want to focus on them,” he says. “I went into every protocol just knowing that it would work.”

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The benefits of trials: Eve Irvine

“One of the biggest benefits [to a clinical trial] is the extra attention to your health.”

When Eve Irvine was informed that her breast cancer had metastasized to her clavicle, she had a choice to make.

Nine years earlier, in 1995, she had first been diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. And when the Asia Pacific Sales Service Manager from Macon, Georgia, learned that the cancer had returned, she could have let it get her down.

Instead, Eve decided to get as informed about the disease as she could and to maintain a positive attitude. After researching her options and consulting with oncologist Dr. Frederick Schnell of Central Georgia Cancer Care, PC in Macon, she was presented with the opportunity to enroll in a clinical trial.

Regarding her prior knowledge of the clinical trial process, Eve says, "I was not very familiar with clinical trials at the time, so I asked Dr. Schnell a lot of questions. I asked him about the treatment itself, how it differed from my previous treatment nine years earlier and how it would affect my daily life."

After sharing this new information with her husband, she decided to enroll. Having a strong family history of cancer, including a mother who was a breast cancer survivor, Eve knew she had the opportunity to "benefit the quest towards finding a cure."

Overall, Eve says she had a positive experience participating in a clinical trial. She added, "One of the biggest benefits is the extra attention to your health and needs that participants receive. There are a number of individuals around who can walk you through the clinical trial process, answer any questions you may have and quickly identify any complications or problems you may experience while on treatment."

While reflecting on her experience, Eve says that maintaining a positive outlook and having a good support system in place made her experience go much more smoothly.

“It’s important to have hope that their will be a positive outcome," she says. She adds that it didn’t hurt that her husband was a great cook and had prepared many healthy meals for her while she went through treatment.

Having a strong belief in the power of prayer, Eve concludes by saying, "I fully believed the good Lord healed me the first time, and I believed He would heal me the second time around. I am very grateful to everyone who prayed for me to get well!"

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Giving back: MaryAlice Moses

“[I wanted to] increase the number of women who participated in clinical trials.”

When Austell, Georgia resident MaryAlice Moses was notified of an opportunity to participate in two cancer prevention clinical trials, she knew it was the right thing to do.

Even though MaryAlice did not have cancer, she wanted a chance to contribute to cancer research. She was aware that the clinical trials presented to her would be used to identify risk factors for developing breast and ovarian cancers.

So, MaryAlice decided to enroll in both "The Sister Study: A Study of the Environmental and Genetic Risk Factors for Breast Cancer" and in the "North Carolina Ovarian Cancer Study." These studies involve individuals who have cancer as well as those who have never had cancer – all to help determine the factors that put a person at higher risk for developing a certain type of cancer.

MaryAlice admits, she was at first skeptical about the intent of clinical trials.

So she conducted some research of her own to learn about the meaning and purposes of clinical trials. Once she learned about their significance in the cancer community, her attitude changed.

MaryAlice states that she got involved with clinical trials in order to "assist in the findings regarding data on African American women and to increase the number of women who participate in clinical trials."

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