Calling Jim and Pam McWhorter the “outdoors type” would be an understatement.
The couple traveled regularly, enjoying hiking, camping and kayaking. In August 2014, they hiked 2,000 feet to the summit of Mount Washburn, a prominent mountain peak within Yellowstone National Park.
Eighteen months later, their lives changed when Jim got sick and was eventually diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma in May 2016.
“Today, he can barely walk two miles on a flat trail,” Pam told Asbestos.com from their home in Canton, Ohio. “Quality of life really takes a hit when cancer strikes.”
Jim, a 20-year Navy veteran, has kept a positive outlook through everything. A pleurectomy and decortication (P/D) and four rounds of chemotherapy removed all visible tumors until May 30, 2017, when the cancer returned in full force.
A CT scan revealed new spots on his left lung, lymph glands and liver. The cancer was now inoperable.
Jim was able to get into a clinical trial at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, testing a combination of the immunotherapy drugs durvalumab and tremelimumab.
For the first few months, the results were extremely positive. The cancer had stabilized.
Unfortunately, a CT scan on Dec. 5 revealed new tumor growth, enough to remove Jim from the clinical trial.
That hasn’t stopped Pam, however. She is busy searching for other options, including getting Jim in contact with specialists at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
“I am already making connections to see if he qualifies for other trials, and as a fallback we go for more chemo to shrink the tumors until we do find a better immunotherapy treatment,” Pam said. “We’re attacking this like a warrior and not settling for less than the best.”
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| Pam and Jim McWhorter during a zip-line adventure in 2013 |
In the meantime, Jim continues to push himself. Although there are no planned trips to national parks in the near future, he continues to climb mountains, figuratively, every day.
“Walking helps tremendously with breathing,” Jim said. “I can’t express that enough. [Mesothelioma] patients need to get out and work those lungs. Right now, I’ve been trying to get up to my two miles a day of walking. I keep pushing it.”
Source : asbestos.com
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