Susan Clairmont: Cancer diagnosis turns nurse into patient ... and Hamilton police officer into advocate for stem cell donations
She thought she had COVID-19.
Shannon McPherson-Adams had been in bed a few days. She hadn't eaten. And, most telling of all that something was seriously amiss, she hadn't gone to work.
Shannon, 42, is a nurse who does birth to palliative care at Norfolk General Hospital in Simcoe. She never misses a day, especially when on the front lines of the COVID war.
I was just wiped out. I could hardly get out of bed," the mother of two young girls says of that stretch of days just before Christmas. I knew something was wrong. I thought I had COVID."
I had to talk her into going to the hospital," says her husband Brad Adams, 43. He is a platoon sergeant with the Hamilton Police Service.
Together, the Canfield couple has a deep sense of duty to the communities where they live and work.
Brad drove Shannon to her own hospital and waited in the car while she went in. He couldn't join her because of coronavirus restrictions.
A while later, Shannon phoned him.
It looks like leukemia."
Just like there were the Before Times for all of us living through the pandemic, for cancer patients there is a moment when their lives suddenly divide into the before and after.
That moment for Shannon and Brad was Dec. 17.
Shannon was admitted to the very floor she works on.
She was soon transferred to the Juravinski Hospital in Hamilton.
On Dec. 22 it was official. Shannon was diagnosed with plasma cell leukemia multiple myeloma. She has high levels of abnormal plasma cells circulating in her blood and they overpower everything else," she explains. It is a rare, aggressive and often deadly cancer.
She had her first chemotherapy treatment that very same day.
Her oncology team wanted to keep her in hospital over Christmas, but, recognizing the added burden that put on Shannon, they gave her a last-minute reprieve and sent her home Christmas Eve.
Abby, 12, and Emma, 9, had been at their grandparents. They came home to find a massive, wrapped gift. They tore the paper off to find a giant dog crate.
What was inside that crate was better than a puppy. It was their mom, making Christmas fun for her girls no matter how sick she felt.
That was huge," Shannon says of that one, silly moment.
This is a family who loves hard. Now they also hope hard.
Shannon's best chance of survival is a stem cell transplant.
She has already had her own stem cells harvested, after a week of injections to increase her cell count. A super dose of chemo will kill off her fast-growing cancer cells and then her own stem cells will be transplanted back.
Again, because of COVID, Shannon must go through the procedures alone.
All of this stuff is a little less daunting for me because I'm a nurse," she says. But it would be nice to just have Brad sit with me."
Brad stays in his car, waiting anxiously. Once, when he pulled up to get Shannon, she was crying.
It broke his heart.
While treatment is happening, Shannon and Brad must stay at a hotel in Hamilton to be close to the hospital if complications arise.
This treatment will not cure Shannon, but it will buy her time to find a stem cell donor match. The plan is that she will be ready for a donor transplant by July.
Currently there are no matches for Shannon on the registry and family members have also not matched. Ironically, Shannon has been on the registry, as a potential donor, for years.
There is a worldwide stem cell registry which is accessed here through Canadian Blood Services. Since the pandemic, the CBS is sending out registration kits upon request. You must be between the ages of 17 and 35. You swab the inside of your cheek and send it back.
It's that easy.
Some day, you may get a call about being a donor. That could mean having your stem cells harvested via a central line or by being sedated and having bone marrow taken from your hip.
A healthy person's stem cells regenerate and there are no long-term side effects.
Brad says there are 800 Canadians currently awaiting a stem cell transplant.
He is on a mission to increase awareness and registrants for the sake of his wife and all the others in need.
He has launched a Facebook page - Shannon's Plasma Cell Mates - that has been endorsed and shared by the Police Association of Ontario and the Ontario Nurses Association. Norfolk General and Hamilton police have their backs, and thanks to personal connections, teachers and physiotherapists throughout the region have also thrown their support behind the drive.
Brad says CBS told him that of all the stem cell swabs sent out across the country from March 15 to 21, 30 per cent were a direct result of the Shannon's Plasma Cell Mates campaign.
The goal is to get 4,300 people registered by Shannon's 43rd birthday on April 15.
The kindness of people," says Shannon. Every day it blows me away."
To register as a stem cell donor: blood.ca/match4shannon
Susan Clairmont is a Hamilton-based crime, court and social justice columnist at The Spectator. Reach her via email: sclairmont@thespec.com