Benefit planned for leukemia patient

FRITZ MAYER
Posted 1/31/18

CALLICOON, NY — Friends and supporters of Cochecton resident Dottie Roycroft are holding a benefit for her at the Delaware Youth Center on March 10, at 1 p.m. Roycroft has been undergoing …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Benefit planned for leukemia patient

Posted

CALLICOON, NY — Friends and supporters of Cochecton resident Dottie Roycroft are holding a benefit for her at the Delaware Youth Center on March 10, at 1 p.m.

Roycroft has been undergoing chemotherapy at Jeanes Hospital in Philadelphia, and she has chronicled the process on a Facebook page called “My Cancer Journey” (tinyurl.com/ybtwooq5). She and her providers are in the process of finding a “perfect bone marrow match.”

The supporters who are organizing the tricky tray are looking for donations. They wrote, “We need baskets to raffle, money to purchase the necessary items to run the tricky tray as well as baked goods, special prizes for our special prize tables. Any donation will be greatly appreciated. The doors will open at 1 p.m. on Saturday March 10; calling of prizes will start at 2:30.”

Roycroft summed up the events leading to the discovery of her illness on a lengthy Facebook post. “I was just tired a lot. I didn’t see anything wrong with that; I was working a lot of different jobs. Pecks, Avon, two houses I was cleaning, dog grooming a few times a year, also cleaning on a colony, not to mention raising our kids and their football practices etc.

“Hubby kept complaining that I was always falling asleep on the couch and not paying attention. I didn’t see anything wrong with being tired. He wouldn’t leave me alone about it and kept riding my case about it. I got tired of hearing about it, so I went to my physician and they ordered blood work.

“The blood work (according to physician) showed that I was extremely anemic and had internal bleeding because my hemoglobin was so low. So they referred me to a gastroenterologist. Gastroenterologist said, ‘I don’t think your bleeding internally and obviously you’re not bleeding externally. Your platelets are also low, which tells me that it most likely has to do with your bone marrow. But before I send you to a blood doctor we have to run other tests on you first to rule everything out.’ So first I needed a blood transfusion.

“Then I had an endoscopy; other than a small hiatal hernia it was fine. A colonoscopy, other than a small polyp, which they removed, it was fine. A catscan with two contrasts, one that I drank and the other in my IV. That was fine. And then a pill cam. I had to swallow this large pill-shaped camera. That test was fine.

“So he then sent me to an oncologist, which ran a blood panel and a bone marrow biopsy. The biopsy showed that I had RAEB-2, which is Refractory Anemia with Excess Blasts, which progresses into leukemia. Without treatments at all for what I had, I read I could live up to 10 months.

“So he referred me to Fox Chase Transplant at Jeanes Hospital in Philadelphia. As soon as we got the clearance from the insurance company, the appointment for consultation was scheduled. When we got there I had to have blood work done. We had brought the paperwork with us from when we had our kid’s blood stem cells saved at birth. Unfortunately there isn’t enough there for me to use.

“At the consultation, the doctor said she wanted me to be admitted that day to have chemo started ASAP the next day. This is all between September first and the day I was admitted, December 11th. And that is where I started my cancer journey. All from being tired. The only other effect I had was that I had started having night sweats a several weeks before I went to consultation.”

callicoon, donations

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here