American Heather Von St. James discovered that an innocent childhood habit had given her an aggressive cancer. Her father’s work jacket, which she wore to keep warm, was full of asbestos dust. Despite the overwhelming diagnosis and prognosis of 15 months to live, she did not give up. Today, almost 20 years later, she is cancer-free and spreading awareness around the world, he reports
As a child, Heather, now 57, of Minnesota, often wore her father’s navy blue jacket when she went out to feed the rabbits. But she had no idea that the clothing from the 1980s was full of dangerous asbestos dust from her father’s shifts on construction sites.
The consequences of this exposure did not become apparent until decades later. When Heather was 36 years old and became a mother for the first time, she began to experience extreme fatigue and fevers. At first, she attributed the symptoms to normal postpartum exhaustion and returning to work as a hairdresser. However, a CT scan revealed the shocking truth: it was pleural mesothelioma, an aggressive form of lung cancer caused by asbestos. Doctors gave her a maximum of 15 months to live.
Heather refused to accept this verdict. She flew to Boston, where she underwent an extremely difficult operation. Her surgeons they removed a rib, the entire left lung, the pleura, part of the diaphragm and even the lining of the heart, which was replaced with synthetic surgical material Gore-Tex. This was followed by pioneering “heated” chemotherapy applied directly into the chest cavity, four more rounds of regular chemotherapy and 30 radiation treatments.
The operation was successful and the doctors managed to remove all visible traces of the cancer. Today, Heather has been healthy for almost two decades. Life with one lung brings her daily physical limitations – suffocating on the stairs and unable to carry heavy things – yet dedicated her life to helping others.
She travels the world as a patient advocate, giving hope to newly diagnosed people that medicine can do miracles today. Her father Roland, who owned the fatal jacket, died of kidney cancer in 2014. Doctors believe that exposure to asbestos played a fatal role in his case as well.
