Leukemia brings new perspective at life
Matthew Seamans' Leukemia diagnosis allowed him and his wife Denae to find new appreciation of all their lives.
“You have a choice: You can feed your faith or your fear. You can focus on the negative or find your blessings.” For Denae and Matthew Seamans, Leukemia offered them a new perspective at life. Prior to Matthew’s diagnosis, the Comfort, TX rancher was stuck in the routine of daily life, going through the motions day in and day out.
“This wasn’t a journey we would have ever picked, but in some weird way we’ve been blessed,” stated Denae.
It has been three years since Matthew (48) woke in the middle of the night, coughing so intensely he pulled a muscle in his neck. By morning’s rise, his neck was double the size. Stubbornly not seeking care, Matthew fainted and collapsed to the ground just days later. His wife, Denae, quickly got him medical attention.
“Until someone proves to me it’s not cancer, we’re going to treat it as such,” his primary care physician confidently told the Seamans. On May 9, 2017, Matthew’s blood work came back positive for Acute Myeloid Leukemia; within hours, he was seen by Dr. Steven Kalter, Oncologist at the START Center for Cancer Care in San Antonio.
Matthew began chemotherapy at Methodist Hospital immediately after his diagnoses. “I one thousand percent knew I was in the right place [Methodist Hospital],” he commented. Treatments lasted weeks at a time, but Matthew and Denae said they never felt like they were going through their journey alone. They connected with several other patients on the floor and even found themselves becoming support systems for other patients going through their own cancer journey.
By the third round of chemotherapy, Matthew’s body was rejecting care and he relapsed. Acute Myeloid Leukemia is not always treatable with standard doses of chemotherapy, and due to the high-risk level of his cancer, he needed a more aggressive treatment type.
“We considered a bone marrow transplant as a more definitive therapy to offer a better chance of cure,” commented Paul Shaughnessy, MD, Medical Director for the Methodist Hospital Blood Marrow Transplant Clinic.
Bone marrow transplant therapy is used to restore healthy bone marrow in patients and build up the immune system. This treatment allows physicians to use higher doses of chemotherapy, sometimes incorporated with radiation, to kill the cancer cells. After these treatments are finalized, the patient gets an infusion (transplant) of blood-forming stem cells to restore bone marrow.
“We delivered his last round of salvage chemotherapy to try and get him ready for transplant. Even through all of that, he still had residual Leukemia,” Dr. Shaughnessy stated. “When Matthew failed to go back into complete remission we worked very aggressively to try and get him ready.”
Matthew underwent an allogeneic stem cell transplant February 2018, nine months into his journey of becoming cancer-free. This transplant type uses someone else’s stem cells rather than the patient’s cells.
Matthew’s transplant team examined through the donor registry of 20 million people around the world - no one was a good match for him. Ideally, physicians prefer allogenic donors to be a 100% match, where they have similar genes of the immune system, though technology advancements over the last five years suggests half-match donors, or haploidentical donors, are also options for therapy.
“Matt’s son was a half match for him. Because he was very healthy, in very good shape, and very readily available we were able to go quickly. That is one good thing about haplo transplants. We can go quicker with a son or a parent than searching around the world for a full match donor,” commented Dr. Shaughnessy.
When discussing his outcome, Dr. Shaughnessy said Matthew came through it [bone marrow transplant] with flying colors and has been in remission ever since.
Three years later Matthew and his wife see life differently than they once had. “Our journey has given us a purpose in life to share hope with other patients going through this.” They began visiting the oncology unit at Methodist Hospital weekly after church to talk with other patients going through similar treatments in hopes that meeting a cancer survivor would give them the strength to keep fighting.
Before leukemia, the Seamans spent 15 years dreaming of building their dream house on “the hill” but always let fear get in their way. “Life is for living and we’re not holding back anymore,” said Denae. The couple was excited to share that they have recently broken ground on their new house and are taking steps in making their dreams a reality.
“It may seem like the end of the world, but people beat it,” commented Matthew. “I want people to see you can make it through cancer. Cancer isn’t fun, but we can make it good and live a normal life once you get through treatment.”
Learn more about cancer care at Methodist Hospital.