|
Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma News - Return to News Menu
Pregnant television news anchor fights cancer
Associated Press
DAYTON, Ohio - Mar. 13, 2005 - A television news anchor scheduled to deliver her baby May 10 has had to cope with much more than the usual concerns of pregnancy. She has spent the last several months undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.
Michelle Kingsfield, an anchor at Dayton television station WKEF, first realized something was wrong while doing the evening newscast Nov. 10. It hurt to turn her head because of pressure from knots that had been appearing in her neck for several weeks.
Kingsfield, who barely made it through the newscast, was worried the growing mass in her neck was cancer. Doctors initially told her it was probably an infection or abscess, but the results from a biopsy showed a rapidly growing, large-cell lymphoma.
Kingsfield learned in August that she was pregnant, and was almost certain the baby could not survive chemotherapy.
Her doctor reassured her the baby could make it.
"There's a lot of misinformation out there, and Michelle initially got a lot of negative information about the chemo affecting her chance for a cure," said her oncologist, Dr. Mark Romer. "You can take some types of chemo and it will not cause birth defects and it will not reduce the chance of cure."
The 35-year-old Kingsfield and her husband, Steve Edgerley, decided she would go ahead with treatment.
"I'm seeing daily in my body how this cancer is taking over, and I wanted to get something in my body to fight it," said Kingsfield, who also has a 2-year-old son, Casey Robert. "Now this cancer has some competition."
She later learned she had the anaplastic large-cell form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which responds rapidly to chemotherapy and is considered curable.
A specialist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston gave her a 70 percent chance of survival. The next day Kingsfield started chemotherapy, and within days, the swelling on her neck was all but gone.
"It's one of the most astounding remissions I've ever seen," Romer said.
Kingsfield believes the pregnancy caused her cancer symptoms to present themselves earlier and more painfully so that she would seek treatment. Anaplastic large-cell lymphoma is normally characterized by a painless swelling in the neck.
She said if she had been diagnosed earlier, the outcome of her pregnancy might have been different, and if she had been diagnosed later, her prognosis might have been different.
"It's an example of God taking care of me and the baby," she said.
At WKEF, the station did a segment after Kingsfield was diagnosed in November and co-anchor Mark Pompilio did a two-part piece in February to update viewers about her and the baby, producer Erin Johnson said.
Kingsfield's last of six chemotherapy sessions is scheduled for Thursday, allowing time for recovery before the baby is born.
"The baby seems to know when I'm sad," she said. "It will give me a little kick and remind me how blessed I am and how lucky I am to have this buddy helping me through this."
|
