Tom was diagnosed with mesothelioma of his left lung on April 26, 2021. On Valentine’s weekend February 14, 2021, he started to cough and after a week was diagnosed with pneumonia and prescribed antibiotics by his family doctor. The antibiotics did not relieve the coughing. By about March 1st, he went for a Covid test and it was negative. He then checked himself into Sechelt hospital the next day to find out what was going on. He was now having trouble breathing. The emergency room doctor gave him an x-ray that showed there was fluid on his left lung. Under ultra sound, the doctor drained 600 mls of fluid and a week later drained another 400 ml of fluid off his lung. He had one more drain after that the following week, with very little fluid left in his lung to drain at that point. Eventually the doctor ordered a CT scan. The doctor made a comment that after looking at the scan, it looked like mesothelioma. She ordered a biopsy. The doctor was right. On April 26, 2021 Tom was diagnosed with mesothelioma on his left lung.

On May 18th arrangements were made for him to go to VGH to have his thoracic surgeon clean out his chest wall and try and stick his lung back to his chest wall so his lung could inflate again. His lung was so encapsulated by the cancer that the disappointed thoracic surgeon could not stick his lung back to his chest wall. He put in a PlureX catheter into his left lung into the pleura, which is the lining of the lung, to drain fluid caused by the cancer. Upon release from hospital, Tom would then have to have weekly drains and a change of sterilized bandages at home by a home care nurse. She would come to our home to do this procedure weekly. By about the end of May, we met with Dr. Barbara Melosky, Oncologist from BC Cancer agency. She told us that Tom’s mesothelioma was a terminal cancer. If we did nothing he would survive seven months. If we gave him a little chemo he might survive 12 months. The news was devastating . She then mentioned that Bristol-Myers Squibb had two drugs they were using in a three-year immunotherapy clinical trial. They had not been used in Tom’s type of mesothelioma, but Dr. Melosky offered them to Tom. She didn’t know if they would work or not, but was willing to try.

Tom's treatment started June 3, 2021. He would know in three months if the treatment was going to work. He had very little side affects after early treatment, a little fatigue. From June to September, Tom lost 40 pounds stopped eating and was resting constantly. He had no energy and was battling his cough still all day and sometimes throughout the night. Then out of the blue on Labour Day weekend he wanted to go for a drive to our home in Pender Harbour. He suddenly felt like he could endure the ferry ride and the hour long drive to Pender. We went for the weekend, and he enjoyed the outing. On September 17th, we went back to Pender to attend a friends birthday. He was able to drop in for a visit and even have a glass of wine with all his teary friends. It was so emotional for them to see how the cancer had ravaged him. But, from that point on, he started feeling better. He was eating again and gaining back his lost 40 pounds over the next six weeks and that dreaded cough was gone. A CT scan in September showed the mesothelioma had not spread. It was contained.

Tom was doing so well by November that Dr. Melosky let him skip one of his every two week immunotherapy treatments so he could spend a month at our home in California. The weekly draining of his Plurex catheter showed that there was not enough fluid to drain week after week. Before we went to the desert in November, I was taught how to change his sterilized bandages so we didn’t need to hire a nurse. Off we went to the desert. Tom was back up to his 190 pound 5’11” frame, up from his skeletal light weight of 150 pounds. He was eating socializing, enjoying his martinis and wine again. He got his quality of life back. In January 2022 his Plurex drain was removed as there was nothing more to drain. A new CT scan showed the cancer was regressing. One large mass had been cut in half in size and two smaller masses had completely disappeared. Dr Melosky was so excited over the good news, Tom became her poster child. We headed back to the desert in California for February and celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary on Valentine’s Day. Tom was flying home to Vancouver on his own for his immunotherapy treatment every two weeks. We stayed in California until April 19th and came home to Vancouver and then up to Pender for the summer of 2022. The life-saving immuno therapy treatment that Dr.Melosky put Tom on enabled him to celebrate the birth of his youngest grandson, who was born in July 2021, and to celebrate his 1st birthday the following summer. Tom also celebrated his youngest granddaughter‘s 3rd and 4th birthday's in August 2021 and 2022. Tom also got to celebrate his own birthday turning 78 in August 2021, and celebrated his 79th birthday August 2022.

The summer of 2022 Tom was losing energy again. After an angiogram in November, he found out he was a candidate for bypass surgery and was put on a wait list. A short two weeks later, he had a mild heart attack and was told he had been bumped to the top of the waitlist. Tom underwent triple bypass surgery on December 6, 2022. His heart surgery was a success. It should be noted that when he was being checked out for his heart surgery, we were very surprised to learn that his left lung, his cancer lung, had reinflated itself. The cancer had come off his chest cavity and lung during these life-saving immunotherapy treatments.

On January 18th Tom went into the emergency at Lions Gate Hospital because he was having serious breathing issues. He was diagnosed with pneumonia on his right lung and was being treated in hospital. A CT scan showed his right lung contained fluid in the lining of the plurex. The fluid was drained off his lung the morning of January 23rd. Somehow the right lung collapsed. Note that his left, re inflated cancer lung was breathing for him. He was given pressured oxygen to help inflate his collapsed lung. We were all devastated when Tom suddenly died early morning on January 24, 2023 from pneumonia mesothelioma complications.

I’m my opinion, if Tom had only the mesothelioma, we were looking forward to him, going into remission by the end of his treatments this year. If he only had the mild heart attack and open-heart surgery, I feel he would have survived the bypass operation and gained his energy back and recovered. However, having both diseases together was too much for Tom‘s body to fight and maybe even for his left cancer lung. He went to hell and back and never complained. He always said, “don’t worry about what you couldn’t control”.

The immunotherapy treatments were life saving and if it were not for the combination of the diseases I feel in my opinion he would be here today. Tom could have gotten many more years of life, good quality of life, with this miracle immunotherapy treatment saving his life from this terminal cancer. On behalf of Tom’s family I ask you to please donate to BCCF Mesothelioma Clinical Trial, headed by Dr. Barbara Melosky. Let’s Start Saving Lives.

Sincerely,
The Christy Family