Patient Testimonial - "You Always Have Choices"
OCTOBER 2020: Julio Davila is just starting to get comfortable with who he sees in the mirror again. While he still has “chemo brain,” a ringing in his ears, a numb tingly feeling in his arm and hand, and tires easily as after effects to his cancer treatment, he is just about back to his normal weight and his hair has grown back – he just doesn’t have as much.
“I’m looking like me again,” Julio states. “I am happy to be here. The other choice - I didn’t like that one.”
Julio, who owned a trucking company and drove truck, ate well, exercised, and lived a healthy life. He had annual checkups with his family physician, Dr. Steven Joyce, and cancer did not run in his family. He had on-and-off shoulder pain but passed it off due to his occupation. He started being treated by an orthopaedic physician, Dr. Michael Nguyen, at CNOS. In June 2018 on one of his cross-country deliveries, Julio heard a snap in his left shoulder while cranking his trailer. When he returned home, he went back to his orthopaedic physician. An x-ray showed an abnormality in his arm’s humerus bone and he was told, “I think you have bone cancer.”
Julio immediately contacted Dr. Joyce who presented him with options. They both agreed everything Julio needed was available right here in Siouxland. Julio was referred to the June E. Nylen Cancer Center JENCC). Following a comprehensive work up including a positron emission tomography (PET) scan, it was clarified that Julio’s primary diagnosis was Metastatic High-Grade Neuroendocrine Carcinoma in the pancreatic tail and the disease had metastasized, or spread, to his left arm bone, lungs, and liver.
“At one point, I was told I had 6 months to live,” says Julio. “Cancer is complicated. I was presented my options. I had choices - I could make peace with my Maker or do something to prolong my prognosis. I chose to do something to combat my cancer and wanted to act fast!”
Julio explains that the next part was very challenging. While he understood that all his specialists needed to coordinate in order to determine the exact steps in his care, that took a few weeks. It was decided Dr. Daniel Kensinger, an orthopaedic surgeon from CNOS, would start with surgery on Julio’s arm which would also require putting a pin in place. This would help stabilize the arm for Dr. Greg Naden, Radiation Oncologist at the Nylen Cancer Center, who was overseeing 12 radiation treatments to Julio’s humerus.
After his third radiation treatment, Julio also started chemotherapy. Julio completed his 6 cycles of chemotherapy in January 2019. JENCC’s Medical Oncologist Dr. Nasser Abu-Erreish (Dr. Abu) and Dr. Naden again consulted and Julio would have another 10 radiation treatments to the brain for precautionary measures.
Since his last radiation treatments Julio has a PET scan every 3 months to make sure he continues to have no areas of disease. “My first scan lit up like a Christmas tree,” he said. “The next one just showed spots in my stomach and kidneys. I just had my most recent scan and I am considered to be in remission.”
“Mr. Davila’s cancer was aggressive,” says Dr. Abu. “PET imaging has been very important in his case. Early CT and bones scans images were not helpful and did not show the extent of the disease. It was PET images that established the point of origin of the cancer and showed where the cancer went.”
Dr. Abu continues to add that PET scanning not only helps with the correct diagnosis in order to formulate the plan of treatment, it also tracks response to the treatment. Evaluating if the treatment is effective is not done just by looking at tumor size. PET scanning shows chemical activity of the tumor and this is not something CT imaging can illustrate. “We will continue to use a PET scan to make sure Mr. Davila stays in remission.”
Julio is grateful for everyone involved in his care. “I highly recommend the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. Patients do not need to travel out of our community to receive top care and state-of-the-art treatment. Traveling for what I needed would have been more costly and much more tiring. My options were available right here.”
With being cancer-free now, what is Julio looking forward to? “I had a few close calls. Dr. Abu is telling me I am his ‘poster child for recovery’ and I didn’t beat cancer to now sit on my rear. He is encouraging me and my wife Sonia to take a survivor’s vacation. There’s choices for us as to where to go – and we will be planning on this when COVID settles down more.”
LEFT: Julio Davila, Cancer Survivor enjoying one of his hobbies, fishing.
RIGHT: Julio and his wife, Sonia.