Mississauga Multiple Myeloma March participant waited for months to get a diagnosis

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Published September 15, 2022 at 5:07 pm

ann westren-doll
Ann Westren-Doll with her daughter, Natasha, ringing the ‘cancer free’ bell after her second stem cell transplant.

When Ann Westren-Doll started to get pain in her hips and thighs back in December 2017, her doctor thought it was sciatica.

But the discomfort became so debilitating that Westren-Doll had trouble walking, sleeping, and going about her daily routine.

“I went to physiotherapy went to the chiropractor, after a few months, I still have this increasing pain,” she tells inSauga. “And I told the doctor, I said, ‘Look, whatever we’re doing, it’s wrong. It’s not right. There’s something else going on.'”

But it would take several months to be diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a little-known and incurable blood cancer.

For the first time, Westren-Doll, who lives in Etobicoke, on the border of Mississauga, will join the Mississauga Multiple Myeloma March on Sept. 24 at Meadowvale Community Centre.

Now in partial remission, Westren-Doll said she had never heard of multiple myeloma before finally getting her diagnosis in May 2018.

On May 26, 2018, she tripped on a badly positioned carpet, she was rushed to hospital, and doctors found she fractured her pelvis. Doctors thought the injury was odd given she was seemingly healthy and it was a minor fall.

“I totally demolished my pelvis,” she says.

So they ordered more tests, including a bone marrow biopsy, and Westren-Doll finally received her life-changing myeloma diagnosis.

Her family doctor had done blood work but nothing showed up on the tests. It took a more specific test to get the diagnosis.

There is no cure for multiple myeloma but there are ways to slow its progress. Westren-Doll did two weeks of radiation, 16 weeks of chemo, and then two stem cell transplants. She also had hip replacements. Doctors told her said she might not walk again.

“I have so much determination, you know, and to me, it was like, I’m not letting anything bring me down and I worked hard at it. It was hard,” she says. “I’ll tell you honestly, the first two years were the hardest of my life. But I pulled through.”

She is now in partial remission (multiple myeloma patients are never in full remission), she uses a cane to get around and plans to walk as much as she can of the five-kilometre route in the march. Her daughter, daughter’s boyfriend, sister and a friend plan to join her on the walk.

Westren-Doll hopes to raise awareness about multiple myeloma.

In 2022, it is estimated that 4,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and 1,650 will die from the blood cancer. Many people have never heard of the disease and don’t know the symptoms.

“We need to bring that awareness to people — it took almost five months before I was diagnosed, and the only reason I was really diagnosed with it was because I had that fall and break.”

Even though there is no cure right now, Westren-Doll is hopeful for the future.

“You need to have a positive attitude and believe that you’re going to beat it. I am so grateful to be alive, and I stay hopeful that researchers will find a cure soon.”

To help raise awareness and funds as well as better access to life-saving treatments and care for this incurable cancer, people can join the 11th annual five km Mississauga Multiple Myeloma March on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022, at 8:30 a.m., at the Meadowvale Community Centre.

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