StemCell Therapy

Stress and being overburdened may not give you a near-fatal illness," Susan Doherty says, "but in my opinion it can turn the key and open the gate." Pierre Obendrauf / Montreal Gazette

Death is a great teacher and Susan Doherty should know.

The Westmount author and fitness instructor has stared it in the face, unblinking, having gone to the brink several times in the last couple of years as she found herself in the clutches of a very rare, and very deadly, illness.

And death, she says, or the very real prospect of it, has taught her so very much about life.

Now, as she approaches the significant one-year anniversary of her stem cell transplant at the Royal Victoria Hospital on June 2, she hopes some of those lessons can be shared with others facing daunting obstacles.

Doherty is one of those people best described as a force of nature. Even at the height of her life-threatening illness and harrowing treatments, one of her doctors recalled she took such swift power walks through the hospital that it was challenging keeping up with her.

It is her unstoppable nature that very likely got her through a two-year battle with HLH, Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis, a life-threatening immunodeficiency.

So rare and unknown is this blood disease that when she was given the diagnosis by hematologist-oncologist April Shamy and her team at the Jewish General Hospital on Aug. 6, 2015, her blood had to be flown to Toronto because the test required for confirmation is not available here.

HLH is not cancer, but its treated like cancer, and Doherty had to begin chemotherapy within hours. Left untreated, a patient can die within 60 days of multi-organ failure and they were not sure where Doherty was on that trajectory.

Doherty, 59, is one of the first adults in Quebec to receive a stem cell transplant for HLH.

With HLH, the immune system becomes overactive and poorly controlled, which is potentially damaging to all vital organs and blood cells.

When I say how fortunate I am to have had the diagnosis in time, I feel truly blessed. People often die before they even know whats wrong, Doherty said.

Her medical crisis began on Feb. 25, 2015, with the onset of chills and a racing heart. An hour later she felt fine and chalked it up to wintry weather.

I felt like something evil had passed through my body and left without a trace, she recalled.

In reality, it was more like something evil had entered her body and decided to stay.

One doctor blamed it on anxiety after all, she was in the throes of moving her sick mother while she nursed a broken arm; her mother-in-law had end-stage Alzheimers disease; she was working on the final edit of her first novel, A Secret Music; she was teaching several fitness classes and she was volunteering in the schizophrenia ward at the Douglas Hospital three times a week.

Stress and being overburdened may not give you a near-fatal illness, but in my opinion it can turn the key and open the gate, Doherty said.

In August, she developed a high fever and the right side of her face went numb. Over the next several days, Doherty had every test imaginable.

She describes the day she got her diagnosis as both the scariest and most spiritual of her life. Surrounded by her husband, Hal Hannaford, and her children, Alisse and Reid, Doherty began my recovery with positivity and the certainty my health would return.

She maintained a demanding exercise and meditation regime and decided very early on in her journey that it took just as much energy to be positive as to be negative.

The physical pain of what I went through is nothing compared to the existential pain, she said.

Her doctors recognized her unflagging optimism as inspirational.

The way she confronted and navigated her course was extraordinary, said Shamy. She tackled every day with a smile and an exemplary positive attitude. She has been an inspiration to all of us and we have been enriched through meeting her.

Doherty successfully completed chemotherapy and went into remission for 77 days.

Then, in January 2016, HLH came back fast and furious. Shamy told her she would need a stem cell transplant if she had any hope of surviving.

Doherty had to repeat the chemotherapy, plus additional brain chemotherapy. In Montreal, only the Royal Victoria and Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospitals even have stem cell transplant programs, and Doherty was fortunate to be accepted at the Vic.

Doctors told her she had a 50 per cent chance of survival. But Doherty always told everyone her chances were 100 per cent; she just knew she would be in the good pile.

A donor was found in Germany (so Doherty made a playlist of German music to inspire her during the transplant), and she had to prepare for 50 days in isolation.

Doherty packed only the necessities: her weights, a yoga mat, running shoes, a wooden angel and her lucky shamrock. She was able to get a miniature spin bike in her room at the Glen. She focused on remaining positive, but there were moments when it was necessary to go into her bathroom, close the door and sob.

Often awake for 24 hours, there was a lot of time to fill. Exercise every day, even the awful days, was a must. It built resilience, she believes.

Your hair falls out, your muscles waste from the steroids, you have ulcers all along your digestive tract. You feel ugly, she recalled.

But there was Hannaford, every morning, with a cinnamon latt and his ability to make her feel beautiful.

June 2 last year was transplant day. As the infusion of stem cells began, she thought about the selflessness of her German donor, the countless emails from supportive friends and family that had lifted her spirits and all she had learned throughout her ordeal.

You get better faster if you have good friends and a loving family, she said. She says her debt to science is infinite but recognizes that her unshakable faith was also instrumental as she celebrates this one-year miracle anniversary.

Unbelievably, Doherty never felt sorry for herself. She believes her battle was nothing compared to the people with schizophrenia she works with and that her mission to help them is why she survived.

No matter what you are facing in life, you can always choose your attitude. Always, Doherty said. Outcomes are outcomes. But living with happiness is a choice.

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Cower in the face of death? Not on your life, Westmount woman says - Montreal Gazette

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