Mat-Su Regional employee needs stem cell transplant

WASILLA — When Jenn Mikkelsen started running again last spring, she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t faster, stronger.

“I thought I was just out of shape,” she said.

Mikkelsen signed up for her second series of workout classes with Edge Fitness trainer Alina Rubeo in April 2014. By the end of the summer, she was running five or six days a week — sometimes as much as 10 miles a day — while raising twin 7-year-olds and working as the Director of Imaging and “Cath Lab” at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.

She had been experiencing a sharp pain in the left side of her chest for some time, but was “feeling pretty good,” other than some slight afternoon fatigue, she said, so she brushed the pain aside.

After all, she was “almost 40” — maybe her body was just slowing down, she thought. Maybe she just needed more sleep.

In October, a few days before she was set to fly down to Kenai for a flyfishing trip, Mikkelsen started to feel congested and feverish at work. Then she began to have heart palpitations, which at first she attributed to her thyroid medication that had a similar side effect. Still, with the urging of some co-workers, Mikkelsen figured she’d better play it safe and visit the Urgent Care in Wasilla, to check for pneumonia or some other infection.

It was neither.

But an X-ray did reveal an 8.6-centimeter mass in Mikkelsen’s chest, which prompted her to have a CT scan that afternoon.

“When I got off the CT table and looked at the images, I knew it wasn’t pneumonia,” she said.

The radiologist confirmed infection wasn’t the issue, and told her the mass was likely the product of one of three types of cancer, one of which would give her a very low chance of survival.

“It’s like, you’re familiar with this stuff and you hear about it on patients, but all of the sudden, it’s me,” she said.

Mat-Su Regional Director of Business Development and Physician Relations Dan Goff, who hired Mikkelsen and set her up with her first fly rod last summer, agreed.

“Knowledge sometimes is powerful but sometimes it’s also dangerous, because you can make assumptions (about your health),” he said. “We’re our own worst enemy when it comes to knowledge, for those of us in health care.”

Goff said he and others had even teased Mikkelsen about what they now know was a symptom of something much bigger. More than a year ago they were bugging her about a persistent cough, which she nicknamed “Charlie.”

“It was kind of a joke,” Goff said.

Until that October weekend, when Charlie became “Chester,” Goff said. Mikkelsen tried to hole up in her office after the news, but a few friends and co-workers wouldn’t let her give in to the fear.

“They told me, ‘we’re gonna get through this, we’re gonna do what we can,’” Mikkelsen said.

There was a problem, however. Of the two CT scanners available at the facility, the one capable of performing a biopsy hadn’t been working that day.

So Mikkelsen made one request: fix it, by tomorrow.

“I just need to get this thing taken out,” she said to her co-workers, at the time. “Put the poison in me right now, just start killing it.”

The “poison” — chemotherapeutic drugs — couldn’t start until they knew exactly what kind of beast they were dealing with.

On Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014, the verdict came in: diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the most common form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, according to lymphoma.org.

Mikkelsen started chemo one week later.

In the following months, she had several rounds of three different types of chemotherapy, one emergency room visit that turned into a hospital stay over Christmas, a couple of PET scans and a consultation with an oncologist in Houston, Texas.

Throughout all that, doctors determined that Mikkelsen has “double-hit” lymphoma, meaning her cancer is both harder to cure and more likely to reoccur once treated.

But the doctor she saw at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, Dr. Yago Nieto, gave her some hope. Although Mikkelsen’s insurance would not allow her to participate in Dr. Nieto’s clinical trial designed especially for “double-hitters,” he did say that a stem cell transplant “should kill” any residual tumor tissue left after chemo.

Meanwhile, friends and family have organized a fundraiser at 6 p.m., Feb. 21 at the Palmer Moose Lodge, 1136 S. Cobb St., Palmer. Mikkelsen had intended to be present for the event — dinner, dancing and silent and live auctions — but got a call from Dr. Nieto the day before her 39th birthday saying she needed to be at MD Anderson by Feb. 16.

“Time is of the essence,” Mikkelsen said, echoing Dr. Nieto’s words to her.

Her response to him?

“You’re gonna owe me a party,” she said.

While Mikkelsen has remained fairly optimistic in the last few months, some things have been more difficult that others. Responding to her 7-year-olds’ question, “are you gonna die?” has been one.

“I told them, I’m gonna die someday, like when I’m 107,” she said. “I’m not gonna die from cancer.”

While Goff attributes Mikkelsen’s attitude to her “hard-headed” and “perfectionist” nature, she said she has her trainer to thank for how well she’s felt, despite being very sick.

“She pushed me so hard,” Mikkelsen said, of Rubeo. “I haven’t been really debilitating-ly sick…probably because I was running so much and working out so much and eating healthy before I ever started the treatment.”

But she’s not out of the woods yet — the transplant process is set to begin today and will last about three months.

To read more about Mikkelsen’s journey, visit akoutdoorgirl.wordpress.com.

To purchase tickets for the fundraiser Saturday at the Palmer Moose Lodge, text 301-200-1249.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.