About Jennifer

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2/27/08

About Jennifer

I knew Jennifer Ireland for about the last year of her life.  I met her and her husband in my office for the first time after she had already been diagnosed with her cancer.  She had come to me by a way of a recommendation of a friend, & before she had arrived at that first visit I already had heard about her case & about her personally.  She was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of cancer. She was very, very young for this diagnosis and for anyone to develop cancer.  At that first visit we established a relationship that turned out to be one that would influence me as much as any patient had influenced me in my career.

 

She was an extremely strong woman, mother of two girls, the youngest that had been born within the last six months.  Together we immediately set out on a path of trying to treat her cancer as aggressively as possible.  Her treatment consisted of chemotherapy every two weeks, & evaluations by CT scans & PET scans on a regular basis.  She handled the side effects of chemotherapy with grace and strength, & always had a sense of humor about her and a sense of purpose in what she was doing.  She was quite a presence in our chemo room, although at first she felt uncomfortable because of her young age.  Like so many patients with advanced disease, her initial evaluations showed that chemotherapy was working & there was certainly a sense of hope that she had a shot at beating her disease.  The surgery that she underwent after about six months of therapy went well, & it was a hopeful time, however, soon after she developed symptoms, and unfortunately her scans, showed the disease had returned & had progressed.  This is where the character and the strength of a young woman was tested.  As her disease worsened & as her scans continually showed signs that things weren’t going well, she approached each day, each chemotherapy, each scan with the same grace, dignity and determination as the ones earlier in her treatment course. 

 

There was just something about Jen that radiated throughout the office.  Nurses were drawn to her, patients knew her story, and we all prayed for a miracle.  That miracle, unfortunately, did not occur.  She spent the last two weeks of her life in the hospital, but even the last two weeks she continued to share her story with people throughout the United States & the world that had come to know her through her interactions and her blog.  Many people came to know Jennifer through her blog, and the stories & information that she put on there were an extension of the woman that I came to know.  She was open about her disease; she was forever hopeful and knew that whatever the outcome would be that she was in god’s hands. 

 

Jennifer left behind some amazing people, her family, including her husband, her mother & all the friends that had known her believed that what Jen had started with the end of her life, could ultimately be the beginning of something special in order to help cancer patients.  The focus of the Jennifer Ireland Foundation is to help other young patients & their families struggle against the emotional and economic stress that a cancer diagnosis brings.  Jennifer Ireland was the first patient of mine that had used a blog as a means of communicating and interacting with family, friends & well wishers.  Since then, I have recommended this to many patients as a way of coping & helping with their cancer diagnosis. 

 

The goals for this blog will be to help continue the legacy that Jennifer Ireland made by being who she was as she battled cancer, and  to use her as inspiration for all patients who are battling cancer.  The second goal would be to show patients and families the other side of the relationship with their oncologist. Talking about some of our ups & downs, our strengths, our weaknesses & hopefully to allow patients to develop a stronger relationship with the men & women who are trying to help them with their battle with cancer.  Additionally, I hope this blog becomes a resource for other cancer patients who want to obtain information about different diagnoses, different treatments.

 

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This page contains a single entry by Dr. Robert Pluenneke published on March 15, 2008 10:39 AM.

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