Fall 2001

Simple Things on a Summer Day

On an otherwise ordinary day nearly two years ago, Billy Stamm of Connersville, Ind., got the grim news that he had lung cancer. But there was more bad news to come. Surgery and conventional radiation therapy could not be used because of his other respiratory diseases. Then he learned about a new clinical trial at the IU Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated clinical center. The treatment, extracranial stereotactic radioablation, uses three-dimensional imaging and high doses of radiation to more precisely target and kill cancer cells in the lung. Stamm is one of about thirty-five patients enrolled in the trial. Robert D. Timmerman, MD, IUSM assistant professor of radiation oncology and the trial's co-principal investigator, anticipates good results because all trial subjects have lung cancer that has not spread to other organs. Here, Stamm talks about his cancer and participation in the trial.

Some people say it's the simple things in life that count and I believe that's true. For me, it's sitting on the front porch of my home with my wife Millie and watching people walk by, or walking through a local shopping center. It's feeling a cool breeze on a hot summer day. And I get simple pleasure out of tending the tomatoes, green beans and cabbage in my backyard garden. It makes me feel good to see things grow.

In the fall of 1999, I could feel something happening inside of me that I couldn't see and it was making me feel miserable. I thought it was just a bad cold, but it got so bad one day I left work at the Clark Oil service station and went to the clinic in Brookville. After visiting my doctor and later getting X-rays, I learned why I was feeling bad. A cancerous tumor about the size of two golf balls was lodged in my right lung.

For years, I had emphysema and other respiratory problems, no doubt related to many years of smoking. I was a two-pack-a-day man back then. Because of those problems, I wasn't a candidate for surgery or other conventional ways to treat my lung cancer. I guess you could say I didn't have too many options. One of my doctors told me about a new clinical trial at the Indiana University Cancer Center in Indianapolis and suggested I consider it. I was game for just about anything, and after talking it over with my wife Millie and son William Gene, it seemed worth a try.

The doctors and nurses at the IU Cancer Center were kind and explained everything about how the trial worked, all of the technology involved, and the possible side effects of the high doses of radiation they would be aiming into me. They made no guarantees for success. "Sign me up," I told them, and I entered the trial in June 2000.

My role was pretty simple. At each treatment, I would lie on a Styrofoam frame that fit the outline of my body. Then they placed a device against my chest, just enough pressure to restrict my breathing, and had me stretch my arms behind my head. It was uncomfortable and I had to be still for about forty-five minutes. The wait was worth it though, because it allowed the doctors to aim the radiation beams directly at the tumor. They told me this also would protect healthy tissue around the cancer from being damaged.

I received three treatments over a ten-day period, and it got easier each time. There were no side effects and I always felt fine afterwards. The doctors say I tolerated the high doses pretty well. To this day, I visit the cancer center every three months where the doctors and staff evaluate my health. The therapy must have done some good because today the tumor has shrunk to the size of a marble.

I didn't know what to expect when I entered the clinical trial, but I did know I just couldn't sit back and do nothing. Now some people will tell you what I did is about the same thing as being treated like a human guinea pig. They can think what they want, but I was treated decent, safely and with respect through this whole thing. More important, my participating in the trial just might help somebody down the road who finds themselves walking in the same shoes I'm wearing.

I heard somebody once say that cancer is a word and not a sentence. I would have to say I agree with that. I'm fifty-eight years old, and I hope there are good years ahead of me. But I take each day one at a time, enjoying the simple things in life.
They mean the most to me.