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First Person: Geraldine Ferraro

Geraldine Ferraro

Geraldine Ferraro

I don't consider myself a survivor; that's someone who has gone through something terrible. People who live through transplants or disasters like Sept. 11 are survivors. I have been extremely lucky; I am a person who is currently living with a cancer that is under control.

I was diagnosed in November 1998 when I finally went in for my annual checkup after losing my primary race for the Senate. My internist said, 'If there's nothing wrong, you're not going to hear from me.' Then a few days later he called and said, 'I've been going through your blood tests from the last couple of years, and I find a very disturbing pattern. You have either leukemia, lymphoma, or multiple myeloma.'

I knew what leukemia and lymphoma were, but I had never heard of multiple myeloma. I went into my husband's office, and his reaction was one of almost terror. We've been married 43 years, and we're best friends. I said, 'Don't worry, they can deal with this stuff; it's going to be fine.'

"At first, I kept news of my situation to a limited group of friends and relatives; I didn't want people to treat me differently."

We met with my doctor and talked about the prognosis. 'You're going to read that the survival rate is three to five years, but you don't have to believe it, because I have patients who've had it for 15 years and are doing well,' he told us. When we asked if there is any cure, he said, 'No, but there are things that can be done.'

I had a bone marrow biopsy in New York, and my physicians urged me to consider having Dr. Anderson at Dana-Farber oversee my treatment. I remained symptom-free until about June 2000, when they put me on steroids. Those worked for four months, then I reached a plateau. So I went to Boston to discuss having a stem cell transplant. I thought I had no alternative, but Dr. Anderson said thalidomide [the drug linked to birth defects in the 1950s, but effective against certain illnesses] had worked with people who'd undergone transplants — and that it could be taken without having one. He suggested trying this form of chemotherapy, which kept things in check for a year-and-a-half.

Paths of Progress, Fall/Winter 2003

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Waging a war against cancer

Until she went public with her cancer diagnosis in June 2001, Geraldine Ferraro was best known for being the New York Congresswoman who became the nation's first female vice presidential nominee for a major party nearly 20 years ago. Today, strangers stop her on the street to ask how she's feeling, and she takes every opportunity to promote research and awareness of the rare disease she's facing.

Ferraro, a patient of Dana-Farber's Kenneth Anderson, MD, has put a public face on multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that was considered virtually untreatable 40-50 years ago but that has benefited from the development of new therapies — including two experimental drugs Ferraro has taken.

"I practically get down on my knees every night and thank God for Ken Anderson," Ferraro says of the director of DFCI's Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center and an authority on the illness. About 45,000 people in the United States are currently living with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells that help make up the immune system.

A lawyer by training, Ferraro, 68, heads the public affairs division of the Global Consulting Group in New York City. She talked recently with Paths of Progress Editor Debra Ruder about her cancer experience and faith in the future.