Medical
Miracle
Reported by Brad
Penner, STATEWIDE Correspondent
Chanel Jenkins-Todd is making medical history. She has a form of cancer so rare
that only 34 other people in the United States have had it. They all died, most
within a few weeks of the diagnosis. A day at school, lessons to learn -- things Chanel Jenkins-Todd
doesn't take for granted.
[Chanel's teacher:] "And let's really think about taking
that last number and making a reciprocal."
Chanel has missed a lot more school than she'd like this year.
Her cancer treatments make her weak and more vulnerable to infections so she
often can't be in her sixth grade classroom. A teacher visits her at home, but
it's just not the same.
[Chanel:] "I don't really like it 'cause at home, like,
I'm only in school for an hour and then I have the rest of the day just to sit
around and do really nothing and I get really bored so I don't really like it.
I like being at school so much more. I am so behind when I go back. Like, in
math I didn't know how to do half the stuff that they were doing."
Chanel is a talented student who's enrolled in a program for
gifted students. Falling behind is frustrating for her, but that frustration
also may be a good sign, a sign that she hasn't let cancer take over her life.
[Chanel:] "I just try to be myself and so I really put
it out of my mind a lot. And, like, when I go to the hospital, I just try and
bring a lot of things to busy myself with so I don't really think about it."
At home Chanel has work to do, the kinds of things any 11-year-
old might do to help around the house. Chanel's mother, Lynda, says the whole
family has tried to make home a place where cancer doesn't matter, and that's
helped Chanel's recovery. [Lynda Todd, Chanel's Mother:] "I think that helps her
emotionally, mentally deal with her situation as one that she can always come
back home and it will be the same thing -- her brothers to pick on, mom and
dad to have chores for her to do."
Chanel loves to spend time with her baby brother. It's one
of the things her cancer hasn't taken away. [Lynda:] "Chanel started getting
sick back in March. She would complain of severe stomach cramps. She would go
to the restroom immediately after eating dinner, and my initial thoughts were
this girl has an eating problem. She's sixth grade. She's starting to go through
puberty so I initially thought there was an eating disorder. Tests ruled that
out. Doctors thought it might be a stomach problem."
[Chanel:] "It was like a cramped feeling on my right
side and like a throbbing, and the only way it would go away, like, if I would
stay balled up and so I just mostly was balled up all the time and then I'd
feel nauseous and I'd throw up a lot and I didn't really eat."
[Lynda:] "So I got more aggressive with the doctors and
said, there is something wrong with this child. So by the end of June, she was
running real high fevers and stuff so I said well, forget taking her to the
doctor's office, start taking her to the emergency room and they took an X-ray
and they saw something."
After more tests, their pediatrician found signs of cancer.
[Lynda:] "She was at shock. When she saw the masses,
you know, she said, you know, I hate to tell you this but I think you need to
go to Children. I think there is something there. And she never used the 'C'
word. She waited because that's not her expertise. She's just a ped."
By this time it was July, Chanel was sent to the Cancer Center
at Children's Hospital in Omaha where Dr. David Gnarra tried to figure out what
kind of cancer Chanel had.
[Dr. David Gnarra, Omaha's Children's Hospital:] And the tumor
was very bizarre."
Dr. Gnarra called a colleague in California to discuss Chanel's
case.
[Dr. Gnarra:] "And in the course of describing to him
the clinical situation and the fact that she had sickle trait, he helped us
make this diagnosis a Renal Medullary Carcinoma."
HR>Renal Medullary Carcinoma is a type of cancer that starts in the kidneys.
In Chanel's case it spread to her chest and neck. Nearly all the known cases
have affected African-Americans with a blood condition known as sickle trait.
Dr. Gnarra and a team of doctors searched for information
They found only one article about the disease. It outlined
34 previously known cases, none of those patients survived. Most died a few
weeks after the diagnosis.
[Lynda:] "It was hard emotionally at first to deal with
it because no one wants to hear they have cancer." [Thomas Todd, Chanel's father:] "I mean, we thought of
cancer as every parents thinks of cancer. If it's there inside, it must be,
you know, growing fast and we wanted to hurry up and get at the solution of
the problem."
Dr. Gnarra and other doctors at Children's consulted with
specialists around the country. There was little to go on, but they knew this
was a type of cancer that spread quickly.
[Dr. Gnarra:] "So the therapy was going to have to be
relatively innovative because it had potasstisized and because the experience
in the literature was that this was a rapidly fatal disorder that half of the
patients succumb to the disease within 15 or 16 weeks so we knew we needed to
be very aggressive."
Chanel has had five chemotherapy treatments so far. Each one
is grueling. She gets high doses of cancer killing drugs administered through
an I.V. The drugs are so strong that they break down her immune system. They
make her weak and nauseous. [Chanel:] "On the fourth day I'll go home and then (giggles) -- then
I'm at home for about a week or two weeks and then I'll get to go back to school
for about a week and then I'll come back."
After her first treatment, doctors started looking for signs
of success.
[Dr. Gnarra:] "We did an abdominal ultrasound and we
did a chest X-ray and we knew within three weeks that we had picked drugs that
were very sensitive and the tumor had dramatically responded."
After another chemotherapy treatment, the cancer in Chanel's
chest and neck was gone. Then they removed the kidney where the tumor had started
and continued with more chemotherapy. Within a few weeks Chanel was in clinical
remission. There was no visible sign of cancer.
[Thomas:] "Later in her treatment, we got word that the
tumors were reducing and so forth. We just knew that our prayer was being answered
because they didn't have to go to a second plan or a third plan because we did
pray that God would guide the doctors' minds and attitudes to find the right
solution."
[Lynda:] "We're very pleased thus far because of the
statistic information that was provided in this one article -- unfortunately,
it's only one article that they have to go on -- no one lived after the diagnosis.
They died within four to six weeks after being identified having this type of
cancer. So Chanel has one, proven that there are some odds to be beaten. She
has responded."
Chanel isn't cured. But the fact that the treatment has worked
so far is encouraging. Dr. Gnarra says if they had misdiagnosed Chanel's cancer or prescribed
the wrong drugs, the tumor may have developed resistance to treatment.
[Dr. Gnarra:] "We're lucky in multiple arenas. It was
very lucky that within a few days by talking to some consultants around the
country that we were able to put a label on it, and once we got the label, then
we knew we had to use a different type of therapy than what we ordinarily would."
Dr. Gnarra says Chanel's case could be a breakthrough in the
treatment of Renal Medullary Carcinoma and other rare cancers as well. He says
it's important to publish Chanel's story in medical journals so others will
have a head start Chanel didn't have.
[Dr. Gnarra:] "It's always fun to be involved with the
very rare and the bad diseases particularly if they show response to therapy
because then you know that you're making a difference, that you're helping out."
[Brad Penner:] "You could be making some medical history
here."
[Chanel:] "Yeah, I already have. I was like the first
one to go into remission. It's really fun. To go down in history, it's really
fun. It's not exactly the way I wanted to go down in history, but it had to
be something, I guess."
Chanel's back at
home. Her treatment is done for now. But her story isn't over. There are no
visible signs of cancer in her body, but doctors believe there may still be
some cancer cells hiding, and they think those cells could grow into tumors
again. To help prevent that, they're recommending a bone marrow transplant.
[Lynda:] "When you hear bone marrow, you know, you think
it's a relatively easy process until you read, and the more you read, the more
you realize maybe that's not the way to go."
To do the operation, doctors would remove Chanel's healthy
bone marrow. Then treat her with even higher doses of chemotherapy, doses so
strong that her remaining bone marrow would be damaged. Then they would transplant
the healthy marrow that had been removed and wait for her to recover.
[Thomas:] "We constantly pray about it that we do make
the right choice because we really don't know what is the right choice because
the rarity of it all."
The rarity is also a roadblock. The operation costs a quarter-of-a-million
dollars and because Renal Medullary Carcinoma is so rare, the Todd's insurance
company is less likely to pay for it. Dr. Gnarra is trying to convince the company
to approve the operation because the cancer has been so responsive to treatment.
[Dr. Gnarra:] "Hopefully we're not going to get hung
up with a name because Renal Medullary Carcinoma is not going to ever appear
on an indication list for bone marrow transplant because it's too rare and it's
not going to be given any kind of consideration."
If they decide to try the bone marrow transplant, it needs
to be done soon and they need to raise at least $50,000 to get started. [Chior singing:] "This little light of mine, I'm going
to let it shine..."
Just last week Lincoln gospel groups gathered for a benefit
concert. People who don't even know Chanel are helping any way they can.
[Thomas:] "We just think that God has placed it in her
life of experiences for her to grow from in the future, because, you know, Lynda
and I just, you know, tremendously believe that faithfully that she'll get through
this."
[Lynda:] "She wants to be a child. She wants her life
back. It's been a rough what, six to seven months now and we're only in the
beginning stages. She's being deprived of her childhood."
But with faith and hope, Chanel and her family believe she'll
get her childhood back and much more.
[Lynda:] "She will. She has to and she will.
{note} This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine, let it shine...
{note} let it shine... {note} let it shine... {note}
Captioning by Nebraska
Captioning Center, Lincoln, Nebraska .
A day at school, lessons to learn -- things Chanel Jenkins-Todd
doesn't take for granted. 
[Lynda Todd, Chanel's Mother:] "I think that helps her
emotionally, mentally deal with her situation as one that she can always come
back home and it will be the same thing -- her brothers to pick on, mom and
dad to have chores for her to do."
[Thomas Todd, Chanel's father:] "I mean, we thought of
cancer as every parents thinks of cancer. If it's there inside, it must be,
you know, growing fast and we wanted to hurry up and get at the solution of
the problem."
[Chanel:] "On the fourth day I'll go home and then (giggles) -- then
I'm at home for about a week or two weeks and then I'll get to go back to school
for about a week and then I'll come back."
Dr. Gnarra says if they had misdiagnosed Chanel's cancer or prescribed
the wrong drugs, the tumor may have developed resistance to treatment. 
[Chior singing:] "This little light of mine, I'm going
to let it shine..."