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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels July 13, 2004 The healing touch of home By John Darling Tidings Correspondent After half a year of radical, new cancer vaccine treatment and major thoracic surgery to remove tumors in Buenos Aires, 16-year-old Whitney Chatfield is home in Ashland, calling the painful ordeal a seeming cure for her Hodgkin's lymphoma. Experimental treatment in Buenos Aires has Whitney Chatfield and her family believing she is on the road to recovery from lymphoma. Denise Baratta | Ashland Daily Tidings "It's effective," said Chatfield, "without the long-term side effects of radiation and chemotherapy," which she underwent in Oregon three years ago, buying her a short remission. Her father, Ashland masseuse Paul Nash said he feels "very positive they're on track and can clean up what's left" when Chatfield goes back for two final vaccine treatments in late July and again in late August. The expensive treatment, for which the family is having to raise $130,000, uses no drugs or radiation, but rather injections of vaccine made from her own blood and tumor cells, which have been put together to educate the blood's dendritic cells on how to attack cancer - then re-injected. "It just makes more sense to work with the immune system than against it and I believe this vaccine treatment is the wave of the future - even Whitney's doctor in Portland (for the chemo-radiation treatment) said that," said Nash. The vaccine is administered, usually to late stage cancer patients at the Regina Mater Clinic, a university hospital, under the supervision of Dr. Gustavo Mogviglia. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, pending lengthy field trials, is withholding approval for use here. The vaccine was injected in four treatments into lymph nodes in her groin, causing severe wounding and blistering, but allowing the antibodies to circulate to lymph nodes in her chest and neck to battle the advanced cancer, Nash said. Chatfield on June 25 underwent removal of tumors in her neck and 70 percent of tumors in her chest, requiring a large entry incision under her right arm. She just got off pain pills when she arrived home July 6 and will have her stitches out soon. "I'm really glad the doctors are positive and that keeps me really positive," Chatfield said. Chatfield's family over the past three years has raised $100,000 through benefit concerts, car washes, appeals to foundations and wealthy individuals and grass roots fundraising strategies, but has seen the tab rise by another $30,000 in the last several months, an amount that must be raised before she returns for final treatments in a matter of weeks. Nash admits he doesn't have a plan for raising the money, but remains confident. "I don't know," said Nash. "We've done it before. We'll just do it." Then he joked (to rousing laughter), "Whitney will get a job. More seriously, he adds, "We're very ready for this to be over and for it to be smooth sailing for a while." While in Argentina, Chatfield kept up her guitar playing and songwriting, made friends she's eager to see again and attended a Waldorf School the first few months, before reaction to treatments intensified as lymphocytes learned how to battle the disease, thus acting more quickly and intensely, she said. This fall, as a junior at Ashland High School, Chatfield will spend a year at Wilderness Charter School, a small, intimate learning environment. "I'm so glad, so excited. I really needed the change of scenery and the shift into a community setting, rather than classes with 300 kids." The six months in Buenos Aires, being cared for either by her father or mother, Ami Cline of Ashland, has changed her, Chatfield said, but it's hard to find words to describe it. "All I can say is I am so thankful to the people who've supported, helped and loved us - and it's so good to be back here in all this beauty, breathing fresh air." DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams