Thursday morning, October 4, 2018 Julia Allmond dropped her son off at school and headed to work just like any other morning. Only this morning would take a turn she never saw coming.
She didn't feel well. Julia had a terrible headache, felt exhausted, dizzy and was even having trouble putting words together in sentences. In fact, she was so noticeably unwell that her boss drove her to a nearby urgent care center where the physician concluded she may have had a stroke based on her neuro symptoms.
At the urging of the physician, Julia's boss drove her to the emergency room at their local hospital. Once there, Julia had her blood drawn not once but twice because the numbers came back so dangerously low (pancytopenia). The ER physician called in a Hematologic Oncologist who determined that if what he thought Julia had was true, she would need to be moved to Penn Medicine. An ambulance transported Julia immediately.
Thursday evening, Julia was in a bed, on the blood cancer floor of Penn Medicine – the best blood cancer program in the area.
Over the next two days Julia would undergo a painful bone marrow biopsy that would confirm the Hematologic Oncologist's speculation: Julia had Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. This M3 type of Leukemia is one of the rarest forms and has one of the most gruesome treatment plans, but the best prognosis – if you survive the treatment.
Leukemia blasts had taken over 95% of Julia's bone marrow. She was told that she likely would not have survived another week – her boss essentially saved her life by insisting she go to urgent care. Chemo was started immediately which consisted of three-hour infusions of arsenic trioxide and 6 ATRA chemo pills each day. Julia was looking at 40 days at Penn Medicine to complete the initial consolidation treatment after which, if she was stable, she could continue on an outpatient basis.
Those 40 days were brutal for Julia. The Chemo therapy caused a variety of health issues including acute liver failure, neutropenia (dangerously low white blood cell count), myalgia, night sweats, nausea, debilitating headaches from increased spinal fluid pressure, elevated white blood counts, low hemoglobin (requiring numerous blood transfusions), low platelets (requiring additional blood products), fever, lung inflammation, widespread joint pain, anxiety, weakness, weight gain and fluid retention (brought on by IV steroids.)
On November 5th Julia endured a second bone marrow biopsy, this time under live sedation to reduce the pain experienced during the procedure. After the biopsy she immediately returned to chemotherapy treatments for a week until the oncologist delivered the good news: Julia's leukemia blasts were down from 95% to 2.6%. She was in complete remission and her disease was stable enough to continue treatment on an outpatient basis.
Her new treatment schedule included chemo five days a week for four consecutive weeks followed by four weeks off to recover. And then the cycle would start over again twice more for a total of six months. But by mid-January Julia was back in the hospital, admitted for full body toxicity from the chemotherapy which delayed her outpatient chemo and pushed back her completion date.
A month later, Julia resumed outpatient chemo and completed her final infusion on June 28th. Having endured a total of 100 arsenic infusions, she was exhausted but rang the bell and celebrated with family and friends before climbing the rocky steps after infusion. For the next two months Julia worked with a trainer to build strength back as her muscles had atrophied and she had lost significant weight during her treatments.
Cancer took nine long months of Julia's life but she was ready to take it back. Even though her oncologist excused her from work for a year to recover, she asked to return to work after Labor Day and he approved.
Aside from routine blood tests to monitor her blood counts and confirm that she's still in remission, Julia began living her life as a survivor.
As of November 1, 2021 she is three years in remission and focusing on getting to five years so she can be in the Survivorship Program where the chances of her cancer returning become virtually nonexistent.
While it was a long, painful, exhausting and scary year of treatments, Julia says the hardest part was being away from her son. But she happily reports that they are making up for lost time by travelling together, catching as many 76ers games as possible and shooting lots of hoops at the park.
And while she's extremely grateful and blessed to be a survivor at only 27-years-old, Julia says the thing she's most proud of is being a mom.
Julia Allmond is a Talent Sourcing Partner at Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic in Newtown Square, PA.