'I have a sense of control'
Psychology instructor turns leukemia into a lesson
Mandy Toepfer
Issue date: 3/4/10 Section: Front Page
Mae Eisenbarth's heart sank when she heard Tysha Potter had chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Her reaction was of shock, awe and disbelief.
Potter, herself, didn't have the same reaction when she got the diagnosis on Sept. 8.
"I was pretty chilled about it, actually," Potter, psychology department instructor, said. "I was calm about it, and I don't know why. Really my primary thought was my children."
Potter's initial symptom had been a kind of heaviness in her right arm. She believed it might have had something to do with her heart, so she went to Urgent Care. There, they too thought something might be wrong with her heart and asked her to go to the ER in Joplin, Mo. The CT scan, the sonogram and the chest X-ray came up inconclusive. It was only her abnormally high white-blood cell count that led the doctor to conclude it was CLL, one of four types of leukemia.
The disease starts with a mutation, or change, to the DNA of a single cell called a lymphocyte. Eventually, these CLL cells reproduce and displace normal lymphocytes in the lymph nodes and in the marrow of bones. This abundance of CLL cells in bone marrow may push regular blood-forming cells out, leaving the body at a disadvantage to fight infection.
The disease is normally found in adults 60 years or older, and in men more often than women. CLL is also detected by analyzing red blood cells and platelets because the abundance of lymphocytes can reduce the number of these types of blood cells.
Potter doesn't fit any of these categories. Her only sign of CLL is a high white blood cell count, meaning she is at Stage 0.
This, she says, should be reassuring to her students.
"I'm afraid when students find out I have leukemia, they think I'm like on my death bed," she said. "Any day now I'm going to be gone, but that's just not the way it is."
Because she was diagnosed, Potter decided to dig a little bit more into her health situation. She says cancer is largely triggered by a weakened immune system, so she went to her son's immunologist. There, the doctor ran between 22 to 24 tests on her. Three months later when the test results came back, she found there was more to her health story: food allergies, hypoglycemia and Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
Her reaction was of shock, awe and disbelief.
Potter, herself, didn't have the same reaction when she got the diagnosis on Sept. 8.
"I was pretty chilled about it, actually," Potter, psychology department instructor, said. "I was calm about it, and I don't know why. Really my primary thought was my children."
Potter's initial symptom had been a kind of heaviness in her right arm. She believed it might have had something to do with her heart, so she went to Urgent Care. There, they too thought something might be wrong with her heart and asked her to go to the ER in Joplin, Mo. The CT scan, the sonogram and the chest X-ray came up inconclusive. It was only her abnormally high white-blood cell count that led the doctor to conclude it was CLL, one of four types of leukemia.
The disease starts with a mutation, or change, to the DNA of a single cell called a lymphocyte. Eventually, these CLL cells reproduce and displace normal lymphocytes in the lymph nodes and in the marrow of bones. This abundance of CLL cells in bone marrow may push regular blood-forming cells out, leaving the body at a disadvantage to fight infection.
The disease is normally found in adults 60 years or older, and in men more often than women. CLL is also detected by analyzing red blood cells and platelets because the abundance of lymphocytes can reduce the number of these types of blood cells.
Potter doesn't fit any of these categories. Her only sign of CLL is a high white blood cell count, meaning she is at Stage 0.
This, she says, should be reassuring to her students.
"I'm afraid when students find out I have leukemia, they think I'm like on my death bed," she said. "Any day now I'm going to be gone, but that's just not the way it is."
Because she was diagnosed, Potter decided to dig a little bit more into her health situation. She says cancer is largely triggered by a weakened immune system, so she went to her son's immunologist. There, the doctor ran between 22 to 24 tests on her. Three months later when the test results came back, she found there was more to her health story: food allergies, hypoglycemia and Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
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