In 1996, doctors in California gave Sissy six months to live when she was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the pleura, the membrane that lines the chest cavity and lungs.
Sissy, a former teacher now living in Georgia, is a success story from the International Pleural Mesothelioma Program directed by Chief of Thoracic Surgery David Sugarbaker, MD.
With Dr. Sugarbaker’s help, Sissy has beaten pleural mesothelioma and the odds. Mesothelioma is almost 100 percent fatal and for the estimated 3,500 Americans diagnosed each year, survival averages four to 12 months.
Since successfully being treated at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Sissy has resumed her everyday and not so everyday activities – including hiking two miles in the rainforests of Panama.
“As I stopped to catch my breath in the humid canopy of the Panama rainforests, I would think how proud Dr. Sugarbaker would be of me,” Sissy recalls. “My daughter cheered me on during the hike, my biggest achievement post-1996. Or was it snorkeling in the Caribbean? Or the canoe trip up the Chagres River?”
Dr. Sugarbaker heads a team of researchers and health care professionals who are working to make stories like Hoffman’s more common.
Mesothelioma is commonly caused by asbestos, and shipyard workers who handle the material without protective gear are frequently its victims. But like many other patients, Sissy can only guess at what caused her cancer.
Sissy, who returns to Brigham and Women’s Hospital for annual checkups, says she draws inspiration from medical students and residents. For her, they represent hope for the next generation. “Among them,” she says, “there will be a brilliant healer whose potential just might match Dr. Sugarbaker’s.”
