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  Surprise benefit of unexpected diagnosisWoman tells story of balancing life, love, work and cancerBy Peggy Peck  Zammett is examined by oncologist Dr. Michael Mauro at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. HEALTH LIBRARYRELATED
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSNEW YORK (MedPage Today) -- It was November 11, 2001, two months after the day the world changed for most Americans, that Erin Zammett's perfect world imploded. On that day Zammett, a 23-year-old fresh out of college, just launching a career in journalism at Glamour magazine, was told that she had leukemia -- specifically, chronic myeloid leukemia, commonly called CML. Like most Americans, Zammett faced devastation, loss, and anger when the World Trade Center was attacked. She lived just blocks from ground zero and it was there in her "perfect" apartment in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood that she grieved and raged in private. Nine-to-five she bonded with her colleagues at Glamour to get through those difficult fall days. Although New York still had a shell-shocked air about it, Zammett and her friends were beginning to pick up the rhythms of the hectic but exciting life that she says is a fringe benefit of a job at a high-profile magazine like Glamour. "I had a great job, a great roommate, a great apartment," she said. "My life was just as I had always dreamed it would be." Those dreams began in suburban Huntington, Long Island, where she grew up and where her parents still live. She studied journalism at the University of Tennessee, and after college she took a post-grad course in magazine publishing at Radcliffe, which led to the job at Glamour. "Working there as an editorial assistant, you don't get paid much but you get to do a lot of really neat things like parties and openings," she said. She knew that enjoying life meant a commitment to a healthy lifestyle. She watched her diet, worked out regularly, and had checkups with her gynecologist. "But it had been a while since I had a checkup with a primary care physician, so I did that in November. A day later, the doctor called and said he had found something in my blood work. He told me to come in to have the blood tests done again." Don't delayAnd one more thing: "He told me not to delay. To come in right away for more tests," she said. So, she returned to the doctor's office on November 11, listening as he told her that the blood test found CML. This was serious stuff. As she walked from the doctor's office, she realized that she had forgotten her cell phone. "So I had to go to a pay phone to call my mother. I had to keep feeding it dimes while I was telling my mother that I had leukemia. It wasn't the ideal 'I have cancer' moment." From the pay phone she headed back to her office, where she told her boss, Glamour Editor in Chief Cynthia Leive, the results of her blood test. Her boss and the entire Glamour staff wasted no time. "It turned into 'leukemia command center,' " she said. Coincidentally, Glamour, which devotes a fair amount of pages to stories about women's health, had just put the finishing touches on an article about young women diagnosed with CML who were experiencing remarkable remissions through treatment with the cancer pill Gleevec (imatinib mesylate). Gleevec is a molecularly targeted therapy that attacks a specific biochemical abnormality found in CML. It kills the abnormal cells but has little effect on normal cells. Because the drug attacks just that molecular target, it doesn't cause the side effects seen with traditional chemotherapy. Zammett's family -- her parents and two sisters -- joined her boyfriend and the Glamour staff to help her line up appointments with cancer doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. "I was also able to contact Dr. Brian Druker and Dr. Michael Mauro at the Oregon Health Sciences Center," she said. Druker and Mauro conducted the original clinical studies of Gleevec. Treatment for lifeZammett went to Portland, Oregon, on December 17, and after meeting with Mauro she decided to join a new clinical study testing a combination of Gleevec and Cytosar (cytarabine). Every day she would take 400 mg of Gleevec and every two weeks she injected herself with Cytosar. The injections, she said, were the most difficult aspect of her cancer. "I had to learn to inject myself, and I never got comfortable with it," she said. She continued that regimen for a year -- the pre-determined length of the study -- and she continues to take a Gleevec pill every day. "That's the thing with Gleevec," she said. "You have to keep taking it." In April 2003 she achieved molecular remission, meaning that no cancer cells could be detected. Meanwhile, her career was still on track and she was now an associate editor at Glamour. Moreover, she was now writing a regular column that recounted her experience as a cancer patient. The column was so well received she was asked to write a book. That book, "My (So-Called) Normal Life: How I learned to balance love, work, family, friends...and cancer at 23," was published last May. The cancer familyJust as she was settling into life as a cancer survivor, she faced another challenge. Her older sister was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, another cancer. "Melissa was seven months pregnant when she was diagnosed," Zammett said. And her sister's treatment was "much more difficult. I had no side-effects, but my sister had all the side-effects of cancer treatment," she said. Her sister's initial treatment was a success, and Zammett again resumed her "normal life." Then in September 2004, her sister relapsed. "That was really scary. We were prepared because we learned that 'we're the family that can handle cancer,' but the relapse was even scarier than the original diagnosis because you have less options." Throughout this time she still continued to make regular trips to Portland for checkups with Mauro, and for a surprising benefit of her treatment -- fittings for a designer wedding gown. The boyfriend who was by her side when her cancer was diagnosed, Nicholas Ruddy, had become her fiancé. Celebrating life"Dr. Mauro's wife designs bridal gowns," said Zammett. "During my treatment, we became very close, so when I got engaged, I asked her to design my wedding gown." Zammett and her fiancé joined her sister and brother-in-law to ring in the year 2005 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. "We were all wearing masks and gowns because Melissa had just had a stem-cell transplant, but we were together." The next six months had ups and downs as Melissa slowly regained her strength, but by July, Melissa was one of 300 friends and family who gathered to celebrate at Zammett's wedding. "It was such a wonderful celebration of life and that perfect day would not have happened without all that happened over the last four years," she said. 
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