By: Gwen Lanning
May 13, 1971 my doctor said, "I wish I could help you. You have to get rest. Don't worry about drug addiction. The pain counteracts this. You have no other choice." Then he pulled out a prescription blank for two hundred of one of the most powerful pain averting drugs available. I was dying of cancer and the doctors had done all they knew to do. For over four years they had fought to save my life.
My name is Gwen Lanning. The disease had been diagnosed as "Reticulum Cell Sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. A brief history of my illness is as follows:
October 1966 to July 1967: My left arm began aching and pain increased until I could get no rest. Cortisone injections furnished temporary relief but pain always returned with higher intensity. Xrays, a biopsy and pathology examinations of bone and surrounding tissue samples revealed a malignant tumor. Seventy‑five percent of the bone had already been destroyed by the tumor leading the doctors to estimate the disease had existed for at least three years. At my insistence to know the whole truth, I was told that this is a slow growing type of cancer and that statistics indicate it is terminal within a short period of time after it is discovered.
August 1967 to October 1970: Radiation therapy was applied to the arm over a five-week period. Pain and swelling started in the upper left leg. X‑rays showed nothing, yet the leg continued swelling and the pain increasing. By December 1969, I could hardly use the leg. A radioactive material was injected into the blood stream and a bone scan was made. This revealed a large tumor on the bone above the knee. Cobalt treatments were applied to the area over a three week period during which time the right shoulder began aching. Pain in the shoulder increased so that pain averting drugs and sleeping pills were ineffective in providing rest. X‑rays again showed nothing and I was sent home with instructions to do no work. For several months I had to be treated, physically as an infant. My body became so sore and swollen that I couldn't bear the pain caused by the softest touch. Bone scans, another biopsy and pathology examinations of bone and bone marrow samples confirmed fear of the disease's progressive growth. It had now spread throughout all the long bones, the spinal column, into the liver, spleen and other organs of the body. Radiation was ruled out as a course of treatment and anti‑cancerous drugs by injection were tried.