Camille VS Osteosarcoma!
Donation protected
My name is Camille Wahl, and I'm 15 years old. In 2013 when I was just 10 years old, I was diagnosed with a type of aggressive bone cancer called osteosarcoma in my right tibia. I had to endure rounds of chemotherapy before I was given the choice of amputation or limb salvage surgery.
Being an Irish dancer before my diagnosis, I knew which ever option I chose, it would be impossible to go back to what I've loved to do since I was 3 years old. I decided to keep my leg and get a limb salvage surgery, where they removed my infected bone and replaced it with a cadaver bone, 2 plates and too many screws to count!
I started back onto chemo again and I was bound to a wheel chair for months, unable to put weight on the leg until it was healed. In June of that same year, a CT scan showed a few nodules in my both of my lungs. I had a lung surgery that month where they removed some nodules and some were confirmed as osteosarcoma. I went back on chemo, and a later lung surgery in December also revealed some of the nodules were osteosarcoma as well. I went back onto chemo and finished on January 24th, 2014. I would now have to be scanned every three months.
In May 2015, the hardware in my leg started to fail and I needed to have another surgery to fix it. After the surgery and being in remission for 18 months, a routine CT scan of my lungs showed two areas of concern. I had to have two more surgeries in the summer of 2015, which were confirmed as osteosarcoma.
We looked for treatment options and decided on a clinical trial of 3f8 monoclonal antibodies at Sloan Kettering. I had a very severe allergic reaction, so we decided to stop that and we kept looking for more treatments.
We almost started a chemo pill but in the end we decided that doing nothing would be our best option. The tumor was taken out, there wasn't need for further action.
Again, I was in remission for 18 months, and in December 2016 one nodule in my left lung started to appear, which raised questions about what it was and what to do about it. We waited a month to get another CT scan, which didn't show significant change, but the doctors were still confused as to what this was. We got a special PET scan of my lungs with contrast to seek out components of bone, and the nodule lit up, meaning it was a tumor and that it needed to be taken out. Monday, March 6th, 2017 I had my fifth thoracotomy to remove that nodule. We had been working for months to get a drug called MTP (also known as Mepact) that isn't approved in the United States, This treatment is used for osteosarcoma everywhere as standard care (always used at the tail end of the first round of cancer treatment, not usually after a relapse)
I was on the drug for about 6 months, but my scans showed disease progression so i recently had a 6th throcotamy to remove it. Meanwhile, my leg is in extreme pain, it is almost impossible for me to walk around my own home without being in excruciating pain. I am having leg surgery this Christmas and will be starting a chemo pill a month later.
Cancer treatment is hard enough, and worrying about our finances is something my family and I shouldn’t have to deal with. The bills for transportation, food, medicines and other such bills add up. Please donate all that you can to help us get through round 4 of osteosarcoma. Even 1-5$ can make a huge difference in my family’s life.
Thank you.
You can reach out to Camille directly and follow her on-going fight with osteosarcoma by checking out her social media, or emailing her!
Instagram: @cwahly / @camille.strong
Twitter: @cwahlyyy
Email: [email redacted]
Being an Irish dancer before my diagnosis, I knew which ever option I chose, it would be impossible to go back to what I've loved to do since I was 3 years old. I decided to keep my leg and get a limb salvage surgery, where they removed my infected bone and replaced it with a cadaver bone, 2 plates and too many screws to count!
I started back onto chemo again and I was bound to a wheel chair for months, unable to put weight on the leg until it was healed. In June of that same year, a CT scan showed a few nodules in my both of my lungs. I had a lung surgery that month where they removed some nodules and some were confirmed as osteosarcoma. I went back on chemo, and a later lung surgery in December also revealed some of the nodules were osteosarcoma as well. I went back onto chemo and finished on January 24th, 2014. I would now have to be scanned every three months.
In May 2015, the hardware in my leg started to fail and I needed to have another surgery to fix it. After the surgery and being in remission for 18 months, a routine CT scan of my lungs showed two areas of concern. I had to have two more surgeries in the summer of 2015, which were confirmed as osteosarcoma.
We looked for treatment options and decided on a clinical trial of 3f8 monoclonal antibodies at Sloan Kettering. I had a very severe allergic reaction, so we decided to stop that and we kept looking for more treatments.
We almost started a chemo pill but in the end we decided that doing nothing would be our best option. The tumor was taken out, there wasn't need for further action.
Again, I was in remission for 18 months, and in December 2016 one nodule in my left lung started to appear, which raised questions about what it was and what to do about it. We waited a month to get another CT scan, which didn't show significant change, but the doctors were still confused as to what this was. We got a special PET scan of my lungs with contrast to seek out components of bone, and the nodule lit up, meaning it was a tumor and that it needed to be taken out. Monday, March 6th, 2017 I had my fifth thoracotomy to remove that nodule. We had been working for months to get a drug called MTP (also known as Mepact) that isn't approved in the United States, This treatment is used for osteosarcoma everywhere as standard care (always used at the tail end of the first round of cancer treatment, not usually after a relapse)
I was on the drug for about 6 months, but my scans showed disease progression so i recently had a 6th throcotamy to remove it. Meanwhile, my leg is in extreme pain, it is almost impossible for me to walk around my own home without being in excruciating pain. I am having leg surgery this Christmas and will be starting a chemo pill a month later.
Cancer treatment is hard enough, and worrying about our finances is something my family and I shouldn’t have to deal with. The bills for transportation, food, medicines and other such bills add up. Please donate all that you can to help us get through round 4 of osteosarcoma. Even 1-5$ can make a huge difference in my family’s life.
Thank you.
You can reach out to Camille directly and follow her on-going fight with osteosarcoma by checking out her social media, or emailing her!
Instagram: @cwahly / @camille.strong
Twitter: @cwahlyyy
Email: [email redacted]
Organizer
Camille Wahl
Organizer
Boston, MA