Published on June 10, 2009

BARTON—Olivia Aiken is proud of a recent accomplishment.  She persuaded Dr. Gordy Klatt, a colorectal surgeon from Tacoma, Washington, to make his first trip to the Northeast.

Her pride is understandable when you know that Ms. Aiken is co-chairman, with Susan Lefevre, of the American Cancer Society’s Northeast Kingdom Relay for Life, and Dr. Klatt created the Relay for Life 25 years ago.

The relay is the cancer society’s signature fund-raising event, Ms. Aiken said.  Groups all over the country hold 12-hour overnight walking marathons to raise money for cancer research.  The Northeast Kingdom event will be held at North Country Union High School starting at 6 p.m. Saturday June 20, and finishing at 6 the next morning.

Ms. Aiken said the local committee chose “Building a Community of Hope” as its theme this year.  One idea the group had was to invite a noted figure to make the event special.  They wrote to famous people, including Lance Armstrong and Melissa Etheridge, Ms. Aiken said.

She volunteered to write to Dr. Klatt after asking the group who founded Relay for Life.  Ms. Aiken admits enlisting the help of her mother, Kathy Aiken.

“We composed a letter, typed the letter and we sent it off,” she said.  “Much to our disbelief he said yes.”

Dr. Klatt will speak at the opening ceremonies for the Newport relay, which includes an opening lap taken by survivors and their caregivers.

Ms. Aiken, a survivor of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, will be one of the walkers in that first lap.  Sixteen months ago, after doctors found her to be resistant to the chemotherapy drugs they hoped would eliminate the large tumor in her right lung, Ms. Aiken underwent a stem cell transplant.

As Ms. Aiken was to be injected with cells produced by her own body, doctors had to be sure they would not reintroduce the cancer into her system.  This required a series of bone marrow biopsies, she said.

These were very painful, Ms. Aiken recalled.  They were, that is, until doctors asked her if she might want a pain-free biopsy.

“I said hell yeah.”

Although the actual taking of bone marrow was no longer painful, the recovery process after each of these sessions was not pleasant, Ms. Aiken said.

After doctors made sure her marrow was cancer free, Ms. Aiken had to inject herself in the stomach with a drug designed to stimulate white blood cell production every day for almost two weeks.

The drug caused her bones to ache terribly, she said.  “It was like having the worst flu.”

The next step was harvesting the stem cells, which required Ms. Aiken to lie still and stay awake for ten to 12 hours while a machine that looked something like a dialysis unit separated the stem cells from her blood and returned the rest to her bloodstream.  The stem cells were then frozen in a suspension, Ms. Aiken said.

Then she received an eight or nine day course of chemotherapy to kill her bone marrow.

During this period Ms. Aiken had to live in a sterile unit called a pod.  She could have visitors, she said, but they had to wear gloves and masks, and could not wear shoes or coats.  Children were not permitted to be in the pod.

When it was time for the transplant, a tube was inserted into a vein in her chest and the stem cells were pushed into her blood stream.

“They injected it and I really thought I was going to die, it was really awful,” Ms. Aiken said.

She said at the time she knew it was going to get worse, but didn’t know if her body could take it.

Ms. Aiken said that people often tell her that she must be a real fighter.  “It’s not about that,” she said.  “You can fight so hard.  It’s not a will to live.  It’s just the luck of the draw.”

She recalled reading that the procedure she was undergoing had a 60 percent survival rate, and wondering who among the patients who were having treatment along with her would live and who would not.

“When people ask me how did you get through it, ultimately I let go.  Not everyone gets to live.  If I’m supposed to be here I will.  If I’m not supposed to be here I won’t.”

Ms. Aiken said she never would have gotten through the experience without her family.

“They were my caregivers, my confidents, they cared for me in every way.  I don’t know if everyone has that.  I feel very blessed to have that,” she said.

Ms. Aiken said her mother told her that she would gladly take her place if she could.  “I know that,” Ms. Aiken remembers replying.

“That’s because you have a son and would do the same for him,” her mother said.

Ms. Aiken said her son, then eight, now almost ten, noticed that she had gotten very thin and asked if she was going to die.

“I might,” she replied.  “I couldn’t lie to him,” she said.

She said that she told her son that if she died he would be cared for, grow up and have a good life.  “Kids want to know what’s going to happen,” Ms. Aiken said.

Ms. Aiken spent a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the isolation pod.  She said she handled Christmas shopping using catalogs and made sure presents were delivered to her parents’ home.

Since her transplant, Ms. Aiken said, she has been in the hospital emergency room several times with fevers.  Colds and influenzas were major emergencies, she said.  Her immune system is getting stronger, although not yet up to full strength.

The experience she said, “gave me an incredible appreciation for every day.  How could I have missed the trees in this God-given state?”

“I don’t ever take it for granted, ever again,” she said.

Although Ms. Aiken is grateful for the care she received, she hopes that research will result in better forms of treatment.

“It was brutal,” she said.