Lisa Ray's Myeloma Journey
- Lisa Ray, a Canadian-born actress and model, was diagnosed with myeloma in 2009.
- She had a stem cell transplant to treat her disease and had a cancer recurrence in 2012.
- A cancer diagnosis can lead to a wide range of complicated emotions, including grief.
Ray, a mother of two, starred in Canada's Oscar-nominated film, Water, and has other film credits. She was also the host of Food Network Canada's Top Chef Canada.
Read MoreLisa Ray’s Battle & Maintenance Therapy for Multiple Myeloma
Reflecting on her 2009 cancer diagnosis, Ray once said, “My doctor was scared because after he announced to me that I had multiple myeloma, I didn't react. Even though he said it was incurable and fatal. In my mind, I was thinking that my body has been trying to give me signals for months, and I was ignoring them…”
Ray continues, “Then I got this strongest possible message. Intuitively, I knew something was wrong. But I didn't have the courage to do anything, because I was trained to ignore what my body was telling me."
Ray had a stem cell transplant then went in remission. However, she had a recurrence of the cancer in 2012.
Hematologist Dr. Nina Shah explains maintenance therapy for this disease in an earlier interview. She says, "For patients that get treated for myeloma, we don't stop at just a few cycles of chemotherapy or just the transplant. You can expect to live at least 10 years because we have so many therapies that we sequence."
Related: The Importance of Maintenance Therapy for Multiple Myeloma
"And we have something called maintenance therapy, which we know can make you live longer. Maintenance therapy is just that. It's maintaining the myeloma at a certain level or maybe pushing it away, preventing it from growing," says Dr. Shah. "And the way we do that is to give you a small dose of a drug called lenalidomide or Revlimid. It has what we call an immunomodulatory effect. That is it's telling your immune system, 'hey, wake up.’"
Maintenance Therapy for Multiple Myeloma
Coping with a Cancer Diagnosis
For many people, getting diagnosed with cancer can lead to difficult emotions, such as grief, depression, anxiety, and fear. You don't have to suffer, though. As soon as you can, get connected with a mental health professional, like a therapist, or a cancer patient support group.
In an earlier interview, Dr. Scott Irwin, the director of Supportive Care Services at Cedars-Sinai, explains some of the emotions, like grief, that may follow a cancer diagnosis. He says, "Grief comes in waves. It often gets better over time, but at certain days, it can look like depression. And other days, people look perfectly normal and can function."
"They're grieving the change in their life, the future they had imagined is now different," explains Dr. Irwin. "In cancer care, sometimes, we're actually forcing some body changes that are beyond what would be normal aging, and that can be even harder for people to deal with where they don't feel like themselves."
Dr. Irwin says in another interview how clinical depression may impact cancer treatment. He says, "there's data that [show] if you have extra stress or depression that you may not recover or you have a higher risk of recurrence so that in treating the depression, we're actually impacting the cancer care outcomes."
It's important to care for your mental health, alongside your physical health, while going through cancer. Reach out for support from a psychologist or therapist if you're struggling after your diagnosis. Trained professionals can help make the journey much less overwhelming.
Dealing With Grief After a Cancer Diagnosis
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