The Medical Marvel

When Nova Scotian Stewart Duffie first arrived at the QEII Health Sciences Centre he was told he had leukemia and was given a few months to live.

"I was sent home to die," he says.

That was 35 years ago, in the fall of 1976. This story wouldn't be that unusual if Stewart was a cancer survivor. People make miraculous recoveries and often outlive their prognosis. But Stewart isn't a cancer survivor. The 74-year-old is still a cancer patient, making him the longest living person with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML)  in the world. Stewart is a medical marvel.

The beginning

Stewart first began to feel ill in the late 1960s when he developed a series of unexplained infections. He became so sick he was forced to end his distinguished career with the military, where he served with the airborne then later as a member of the United Nations Peace Corps in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 1972, he was medically discharged and returned home to Halifax with his wife, Kim, and his two young daughters, Kimberly and Debbie.

He was feeling better and had taken up work as a factory technician, spending most of his free time fixing computers.

"Then in 1976, when I was getting things ready for the winter, I fell on my hip while carrying my boat motor. I could barely get up and I had such a pain in my right hip," he recalls.

His wife took him to the emergency room, which then was located at the Victoria General site of the QEII. He had no idea what was wrong, but he suspected  things weren't good  when he overheard a conversation between some of the nurses.

"They didn't have cubicles or walls back then. It was just beds and screens, which meant you could hear everything.  I heard a nurse say, 'my god, I've never seen a white blood count that high' and I wondered if she was talking about me. "

It turns out the conversation was about him (his white blood count was 350,000,compared to a healthy count of 4,000 – 10,000). It wasn't until the next morning that Stewart learned he had leukemia. That's when he was given the grim prognosis of a few months. That prognosis got a little more optimistic the following January when additional testing specified his type of leukemia – CML.

"I was told I could live anywhere from a couple of months  to two years."

The medical day unit

For the next 27 years, Stewart's treatment consisted solely of a drug called, Myleran. The prescription was so effective at keeping him relatively healthy that he was able to become a justice of the peace and a restorative justice facilitator. Eventually his body started to reject the Myleran, requiring him to take new medications.

Stewart's new treatment hasn't been as successful  and for the last six and a half years, visits to the QEII have become more frequent. Up until recently Stewart had been visiting the medical day unit at the QEII twice a week for platelet and hemoglobin (blood) transfusions. The medical day unit, located on the fourth floor of the VG, is an outpatient clinic, that serves patients requiring day treatments  like chemotherapy and stem cell transplants.

During his time on the unit, Stewart has had some close calls and he credits the attentiveness of the nurses for saving his life.

"In 2008, I arrived at med day and the nurse, Allison, said, 'you're not feeling well, Stewart. I think I will call the doctor.' The other nurse, Cheryl, came in and took my vitals, before I became so ill these two nurses had to hold my head as I threw up blood," he said adding that he spent the next week and the half in the hospital, before returning to the fourth floor.

"If those nurses hadn't been monitoring me so closely, the outcomes could have been very different," he says.

Between 2008 and 2009, Stewart was admitted as an inpatient on six occasions. At times his platelet count was at zero (a normal count ranges from 250,000-400,000 and below 20 is considered critical).

"They didn't know how I could walk."

"The med day nurses were always there for me. I cannot believe the care they , who were so very busy, gave to me. If I did not know any better, I would have thought I was the only patient in the hospital."

Thirty-five years later

By the end of 2009, Stewart was seeing the toll the hour-long commute from his home to the QEII twice a week was taking on both him and his wife, who would drive him to his appointments.

"It was causing a lot of stress and it was making my pensions shrink, so I asked them if I could receive my transfusions closer to home at the Musquodobit Harbour Twin Oaks Hospital."

At this time, transfusions weren't available at Twin Oaks Hospital, but the nurses on the med day unit and his doctor, Nebojsa Sparavalo, were determined to make it happen.

"We got the blood transfusions transferred  and for that my wife and  I will always be grateful."

Today, Stewart visits Twin Oaks Hospital three times a week for transfusions that typically last between four to five hours.

Despite his illness, Stewart says he's feeling well. When asked how he's lived so long with CML, Stewart replies, "The doctors can't figure it out," adding that his healthy lifestyle likely has something to do with it. " Up until two years ago I was walking at least 5km a day."

Stewart doesn't have the same amount of energy as he used to but that doesn't mean he isn't busy. "I'm always doing something," he says, "whether it's playing around with computers or spending time with my grandson."