Dorothy Siegal
Spreading hope to patients, staff for 18 years
Patient Dorothy Siegal posed with the Red Sox World Series Trophy when it visited Dana-Farber last fall.
Like many organizations, Dana-Farber has had its share of milestones. Over the 18 years she has spent as a patient here - a milestone in itself - Dorothy Siegal has witnessed several of them.
She began treatment the same year Ted Williams held his 70th birthday celebration to benefit the Jimmy Fund. Last May, Siegal, a loyal Red Sox fan, celebrated her own 70th birthday in the Gosman Infusion Clinic on Dana 1 - a day she says was one of the greatest she has had at the Institute.
Treated at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center for myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), Siegal knows the routine for blood infusions very well; she has been getting them since the late 1980s to supply her with red blood cells that are insufficiently produced by her body.
Not expecting that her birthday would be different from any other visit to the clinic - other than the fact that friend and Patient and Family Advisory Council member Martie Carnie had ordered a special Fenway Park birthday cake - Siegal was sitting in her infusion chair when she heard her cell phone ring. She answered to hear the familiar voice of Joe Castiglione, a longtime Red Sox radio announcer from WEEI, who called to wish her a happy birthday. "Oh, you must be playing a joke," she said. After some friendly baseball banter with Castiglione, Siegal was asked to keep her phone turned on. An hour later she received calls from Sox outfielder Trot Nixon and pitcher Manny Delcarmen.
Along with her husband, Aaron, and friends, many of Siegal's caregivers joined the birthday celebration, including longtime nurses Mary Jean (MJ) Tomovick, RN, BSN and Kathleen McDermott, RN, BSN; social worker Mary Lou Hackett, LICSW; and staff from the BWH blood bank. Mike Andrews, chairman of the Jimmy Fund, arranged the celebrity surprise calls.
Small size, big heart
Siegal was diagnosed with MDS when she was 51 years old, which is around the most common age for an adult diagnosis (MDS is also seen in children of all ages). In MDS patients, the bone marrow fails to function normally by not producing enough red blood cells. To circulate red blood cells around her body, Siegal first came to Dana-Farber for infusions once a month, but over the years, the visits have increased to once a week. Soon after treatment began, she developed an iron overload from all of the transfusions, requiring 24-hour infusions of a drug to help eliminate some of the iron.
Since then she has worn a portable infusion device in a pouch attached to her hip, but it has not slowed her down, nor have the frequent trips to the Dana 1 infusion clinic and several inpatient stays at BWH, including the intensive care unit.
"Dorothy is the only patient I've ever had who went skiing after an infusion day," remarks McDermott, her nurse for 15 years. "She is like the Energizer Bunny. When you think she's going to stop, she keeps going. She's been an inspiration to many patients and staff."
The mother of three and now grandmother of five, Siegal continued to work as a speech pathologist for inner city children until she retired seven years ago. She and her husband have traveled the world, living in Rome and Paris before settling in Wellesley, Mass. They routinely attend classes at Wellesley College. Until recently, along with skiing, she was also an avid horseback rider. She was miraculously able to resume skiing after osteomyelitis (an acute bone infection) in her spine forced her into a wheelchair for almost a year in 1999.
According to those who would recognize her tiny frame around the Institute - and many people do - she has been more than just patient in her time here. As a weekly volunteer "rounder" for the Patient Relations Program, she visited inpatients on the cancer floors at BWH, talking with them and offering them tips on programs and services that might help make their stay easier. Conversations ranged from providing advice on parking to reflecting on what a cancer diagnosis feels like.
Former BWH Patient Relations Representative Deborah Hoffman, MSW, who is now a program manager at Dana-Farber, remembers one rounding experience. "Dorothy was talking with a patient who looked very nervous. He told her what his diagnosis was, and that he felt unsure about the future," Hoffman recalls. "She explained that she had been living with that same disease for 15 years and told him that it would be okay. The patient's entire body relaxed and the fear completely left his face. She had totally put him at ease. It was a beautiful experience."
In 1996, Siegal was a member of the patient work group responsible for providing feedback during the transitional period when Dana-Farber's inpatient services were moved to BWH. This group was the beginning of what is now the joint service of Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center; it was also the beginning of what would turn into Dana-Farber's Patient Family Advisory Council.
"Dorothy has touched the lives of so many at Dana-Farber and at BWH over the years," says Hackett. "She fills people with hope."
- Kara Lacey
kara_lacey@dfci.harvard.edu
