The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Fighting cancer
Milan woman joins Relay for Life Saturday
By Chris Wright, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: September 11, 2008
When Melissa Pettigrew was diagnosed with cancer in 2005 at 30 years old, she knew first and foremost that dying couldn't be an option.
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Now 33, the Milan resident and mother of a 5-year-old daughter has been cancer-free for nearly two years thanks to a stem-cell transplant and other cancer treatment methods. The last three years have been painful as she tries to get back to normal, but Pettigrew said from the onset that getting rid of the cancer was the primary thing on her mind.
Pettigrew will be a featured speaker at the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life to be held Saturday and Sunday at Wilson Park in Milan.
She plans to share her story of beating what was diagnosed as Large B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In a cruel and ironic twist, her mother-in-law, Barb Pettigrew of Bay City, was diagnosed with the exact same form of cancer around the same time that Melissa Pettigrew was hearing her diagnosis. Both Pettigrews, both survivors, will be on hand at the Milan relay.
"Really, the relay is so important to me because it's a way for the community to celebrate those who have fought cancer," she said.
Pettigrew said that her Milan neighbors and the community as a whole have been very supportive of her during her battle and her subsequent recovery.
"This community has done so much to make me feel normal," she said. "It has helped me get my life back."
Battling constant fatigue after her treatment, Pettigrew lost her hair twice and had to wear a mask for months after treatment to ward off germs.
On July 15, 2005, she was diagnosed with the disease after going to the doctor for pain in her shoulder. At first, it was assumed that it was just a muscle pain, but almost undetectable in a corner of the shoulder x-ray, medical professionals found something of concern.
Further chest x-rays found a large mass under her rib cage that turned out to be a tumor, which was pressing on nerves causing the shoulder pain.
Rounds of chemotherapy and radiation that year were meant to put the cancer in remission, but shortly after that treatment, she found out that she would have to have a stem cell transplant. Her own bone marrow was determined to be unaffected by the cancer, so in November 2006, she was treated with stem cells from bone marrow extracted from herself.
Since then, she has been free of the cancer, but that treatment, which included the transplant and an entire year of chemotherapy, had enormous side effects, including weakening her immune system to such an extent that she had to receive all her childhood immunization shots over again. For months after treatment, she had to take great pains to avoid viruses and bacteria.
"I was basically in a shell for the first three months," she said. "I had to be careful or I would become extremely sick."
The treatment, painful and debilitating as it was, was nonetheless effective as Pettigrew has been cancer-free for nearly two years and her immune system seems to be back to normal.
"I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy," she said.
Pettigrew credits the research funded greatly by the annual Relay for Life events as being potentially the difference between life and death for her and her 63-year-old mother-in-law, who herself has been in remission since late 2005.
Pettigrew also credits the physicians and medical staff at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor for their help in her fight.
Pettigrew, a Petoskey native and graduate of the University of Michigan, had been a team captain with a Relay for Life team based out of Ann Arbor prior to being diagnosed. Her father died of colon cancer when she was just 6 years old, and her mother died of ovarian cancer in 1997 when Pettigrew was 22.
She and her husband, Mike, have a daughter, Emma. Pettigrew said she and her family decided to be fighters instead of worriers after her diagnosis.
"Our first reaction was, 'How can we get rid of it?" she said.
Last week, the Pettigrews' daughter started kindergarten in Milan. Given what has happened over the last three years, Emma's first day of school was perhaps even more emotional than that of most kids.
"I'm just so thankful that my 5-year-old has a mom," Pettigrew said.
View video of the Relay for Life beginning Sunday evening at www.milannews.com and www.salinereporter.com.
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