Hearing the words, “you have cancer” just once in your life is scary enough. Hearing it a 2nd time and yet a 3rd time can be devastating and cause severe depression.
However, cancer patient Kerstin Nordh is not about to let the Big C get her down even though years ago she had bladder cancer, then later kidney cancer and now lung cancer. None of the cancers are related. She does not have what’s known as metastatic cancer, which means the cancer has spread from one organ to another. These were 3 separate primary cancers.
As frightening as that is, at 79-years-young Kerstin takes everything in stride, “I always keep a positive attitude and I take it one day at a time. I just keep on keeping on.”
Kerstin is one of four sets of twins. “That’s right my mother gave birth to 4 sets of twins. First two girls, then a boy and a girl, then another boy and girl and then two boys. I have a twin brother and he’s doing fine.”
Kerstin’s mom lived to be 95 and was healthy all her life. However, cancer runs on both sides of Kerstin’s family. “My two sisters had breast cancer and one died of it at age 50 and two of my father’s brothers died very young.”
Because of her family’s cancer history, Kerstin is acutely aware of her risk, so her entire life she’s lived a healthy life style, doing everything right, exercising, eating right, getting regular checkups and cancer screenings.
As a result, each time her cancer was detected it was early and treated early, which is often the key to beating it. Plus, because she took such good care of herself, she was strong which helped her body fight the disease.
Both her bladder and kidney cancers were treated with surgery, but this time because of her age Kerstin’s doctors didn’t want to risk putting her under anesthesia and through surgery so they recommended the non-invasive cancer treatment known as CyberKnife Radiation Therapy.
“We didn’t know what CyberKnife was. My doctor gave me a brochure from the CyberKnife Center of Miami and we read it cover to cover and then went online and read about it. We liked everything we heard. Then we went to CyberKnife Miami, met the medical team and staff, saw the machine and very much liked what we heard.”
Kerstin’s Radiation Oncologist, Dr. Hoke Han explains why CyberKnife is an excellent choice for her and is becoming the number one treatment choice for Lung Cancer.
“Being diagnosed with lung cancer is terrifying, but it doesn’t have to be a death sentence anymore. The CyberKnife delivers much stronger, precise doses of radiation leading to tumor destruction and little chance of it coming back. It’s usually done on patients who are unwilling or unable to undergo open surgery like Kerstin.” CyberKnife may be used instead of, or along with, surgery and chemotherapy.
When treating lung cancer with traditional radiation, it’s difficult to deliver an effective dose without risking damage to healthy surrounding tissue, because the technology cannot track the tumor as the patient breathes naturally as precisely as
CyberKnife technology does.
Dr. Han says, “CyberKnife is the best at continually tracking respiratory movement during treatment as the patient breathes, so radiation targets only the tumor, sparing normal lung tissue from being damaged. Treatments usually take about 60 minutes and are done on an outpatient basis in three to five treatments. If the tumors come back, we can often treat them again.”
With CyberKnife Radiosurgery, we can treat most primary non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLC) such as squamous cell, large cell, and adenocarcinoma, as well as metastatic lung cancers resulting from renal cell, melanoma, colon cancer and breast cancer.
Kerstin had 3 CyberKnife treatments. “I didn’t feel a thing during the treatment. I just laid on the table and enjoyed the music. We were also so impressed with the whole team at CyberKnife Miami. We were treated great. Everyone was so knowledgeable, friendly and nice. I can only say good things about our entire experience.”
“My two daughters want to know everything that’s going on with me and they too are very pleased with my doctors and medical treatment.”
As for Kerstin’s prognosis, Dr. Han says, “Her prognosis is good. She only had one small primary lesion. We should get a 90-percent control rate.”
Kerstin continues beating the odds, defeating cancer 3 times in her life.
Kerstin says, “I love my husband, daughters, grandkids and I’m hoping to spend as much time with them on this planet as possible. I’m not going anywhere any time soon, except for follow up visits to my doctors to make sure everything is okay and so far, so good.”
Lung cancer is frequently treated at the CyberKnife Center of Miami.To find out if you are a candidate talk to our cancer experts at CyberKnife Miami. They will help you decide what is the best treatment option for your particular needs, whether that is CyberKnife or not.
The number to call is 305-279-2900 or go to our website now www.cyberknifemiami.com.