Mercy Cancer Services
Patient Stories
Chris Barnett, Robert Bell, Vermell Jetke, Ed Morrison and Bill Richardson
If it weren’t for Mercy’s Kimberly Smith, M.D.—the
only orthopedic oncology doctor in the state—the stories of countless
cancer patients would be very different.
Whether it was a cancer the size of a golf ball
eating a hole through 59-year-old William Richardson’s right hip, or
what began as a nagging pain in the knee of Tulsa Memorial High School
student Robert Bell, or a debilitating cancer in 75-year-old Vermell
Jetke’s arm or 13-year-old Chris Barnett’s foot, they all voice without
a doubt that Oklahoma is very lucky to have a physician such as Dr.
Smith.
“My Lord have mercy, I don’t know what I would have
done without Dr. Smith,” says Midwest City’s Vermell Jetke. “I can’t
imagine if my arm had been allowed to go. I can’t even fathom it. It was
absolutely a miracle that we found her.”
In July 2002, Vermell’s arm began to give her some
trouble. Everyday chores such as wiping down her kitchen countertop or
putting on her makeup became a struggle.
Referred to Dr. Smith, she found she had a rare form
of cancer, chondrosarcoma. By removing Vermell's humerus between her
shoulder and her elbow, and replacing it with a new metal arm, Vermell
eventually regained much of the use of her arm.
Likewise, McLoud’s Bill Richardson found similar
relief.
This past summer, Bill, a defined workaholic by
his wife of almost 35 years, thought he’d pulled his groin after some
heavy lifting. He soon found out that he had a soft tissue cancer—malignant
fibrous histiocytoma—and it had eaten a hole through his hip.
By replacing his right hip and a portion of his
femur with prosthetics, Bill is now on the mend, currently undergoing
chemo for his cancer. “When we met Dr. Smith, all the scary, yucky
feelings went away,” says Dorna Richardson, Bill's wife.
And it is Dr. Smith’s surefootedness and confidence
that puts many a patient at ease.
“Well first our specialist in Tulsa said, ‘I am
going to send you to someone who will know exactly what this is.’ He
said he’d take his own child to Dr. Smith,” says Carolyn Greenwood,
mother of Robert Bell who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at 16. “Dr.
Smith was very confident. She never had any doubt in her mind what she
was going to do and that gave us a lot of peace.”
For Robert, now 17, he will complete his senior year
with his leg intact, thanks to limb salvage that Dr. Smith performed.
“His biggest concern was that he was going to lose
his leg and his life,” says his mom. “He loves to play basketball.”
But after undergoing many weeks of chemo to reduce
the size of the cancer, Dr. Smith removed the cancer from his femur,
along with his knee, replacing it with prosthetics, and now he walks and
runs and plays basketball without even the slightest limp.
“We thought for sure that he was going to come out
of surgery with a Frankenstein scar down his leg, but you’d hardly even
know he has had surgery by looking at his leg,” says Carolyn. “Dr. Smith
really knows her stuff. She’s thorough and best of all, my son wasn’t
afraid because he knew she was confident in her abilities.”
In fact, one of Robert’s first questions to Dr.
Smith after meeting her was, “how many of these kinds of surgeries have
you done?” At the time, Dr. Smith had performed 400 limb salvages,
cutting out the cancerous areas and replacing them with new joints.
For some, like Ed Morrison and Chris Barnett,
amputation was required. Ed, 55, of Midwest City, gladly traded his foot
in February 2007 for a prosthetic because radiation didn’t allow his
foot to heal and the pain was too much.
“One day I stood up and I could feel bones crunching
in my foot,” says Ed, who had leiomyosarcoma. “I could walk but it
was very painful.” On a scale of one to 10 for pain, his pain was
topping eight and nine on most days. Today, he’s cancer free and pain
free.
Chris, who was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma in
January 2007, had to undergo an amputation below the knee. “I couldn’t do anything about it,” he says, now 14.
“I just accepted it.”
A baseball player since third grade (and the number
one catcher his age before his cancer), he is already back playing
baseball in Broken Arrow with friends and plans to play with the team
before too much longer.
“He’s already riding bikes and playing baseball,”
says his mom, Diane Barnett. “He’s just a daredevil. He has no fear.”
Dr. Smith, one of only about 200 orthopedic
oncologist in the nation, is highly specialized in musculoskeletal
oncology and limb salvage surgery.
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