Wanda Dewey

Individual Additional Information

• Other Attributes

  • death.Source.Comment

    My mother was diagnosed with in Febuary of 98.   She thought very hard about treatment to prolong her remaining life. And it was exactly that, treatment to prolong not cure. So she agreed to be a part of a clinical trial using treated stem cells injected into her brain to try to grow new healthy tissue. They where treated with a drug acting very much like Chemotherapy but on a molecular level functioning very differently.   Her particular breed of cancer was so unknown at the time and was almost unheard of in a women, let alone some one my mothers age, 45.   As part of the agreement with Emma Jean Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown NY, under the clinical trial that she was participating in at the time, when she passed away the brain was to be donated and used for research and   teaching purposes.   She passed way in April of 99. They had given her 5 months tops. She lasted 14 months, competely do to the drug injections and new growth of brain tissue.   Two years after she died we recieved notification that my mothers participation in the clinical trial and her donation, along with others has allowed that particular method to be used in treatment.   My mom was given a less than 5 % chance to survive.   Now people diagnosed with this degree of cancer and location are getting   40 to 50 % higher chances.   I love the idea that even being as sick as she was, always thinking about the future and generations still to come knew that this need was greater than her own personal life. I firmly believe that stem cell research as grow by leaps and bounds over the past 5 years that the contiued finanical support is desprately needed and deserved.   The researchers that worked with her were tireless.   The goal was very clear and remains so.   Controversial or not, it is necessary to have something as powerful a pure growth, used in the appropriate arena's, millions of people will have a solution to a problem that before was not an option.   I am sure that with out this treatment, she would not have had the chance to see and hold my daughter.   I can completely get behind the support and continued efforts of stem cell research, my personal story aside, I feel that everyone deserves a better chance at the fight and this tool will provide that.