CLEVELAND— A woman who has kept her illness a secret for years has come forward so that her story might give others hope.
Linda Smyth, 59, was diagnosed with leukemia four years ago.
“I was living in Cleveland when I found out I was sick,” said Linda, who divides her time between Cleveland and California with her husband Donald.
Donald works for Simplex-Grinnell Fabrication and manages plants across the country, including the one here.
“I had gone in for elective surgery and found out that my white blood count had gone out of sight,” Linda said. “I was diagnosed by a doctor in Statesville and then went running around the world looking for a cure.”
Her only chance of survival — a bone marrow transplant.
But Linda has an extremely rare DNA that made finding a bone marrow donor nearly impossible, she said. Scientists found 30 potential donors in the national registry, only to exclude them all after further testing.
“I had given up hope,” Smyth said. “I didn’t think they’d ever find a match for me.”
Then, two months ago, she got the phone call.
“They found a donor,” she said. “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
She hopes her story will inspire the Washko family and others while they wait for their phone call.
Samantha Washko, 4, of Salisbury, was diagnosed with a rare form of the disease this summer. More than 600 people were screened at an Aug. 14 bone marrow drive held in her name, making it the most successful drive in Rowan County.
If they find a match for Samantha and her chemotherapy goes well, she will undergo a transplant in October, her father Dr. Ken Washko said.
Doctors have allowed Sam to leave the hospital between rounds of chemotherapy, her mother Nancy said Thursday. The family is enjoying a weekend at home before returning to the hospital Monday, she said.
Linda has something to say to folks who stood in line for hours at Sam’s bone marrow drive.
“They will save somebody’s life,” she said.
Just as a 45-year-old woman who was tested sometime, somewhere, will save hers.
The donor’s identity and location are kept secret.
“I’ll be able to write her a letter in a year, and in two years I can meet her,” Linda said.
Linda begins a month in solitary, sterile confinement Sept. 10 at the City of Hope Hospital in Pasadena, Calif., close to her home in Bass Lake. The chemotherapy she will undergo will nearly destroy her immune system.
Then doctors from the City of Hope will collect bone marrow from the woman donor and return to perform what’s called a mini-transplant, she said.
“People need to know that there is hope, and there are very generous people in this world who give of themselves to save someone else’s life,” she said.
“This woman doesn’t know me. I’m not related to her at all.”
While waiting for a donor, Linda extended her life by taking several experimental mediations.
“My days were totally numbered,” she said. “Experimental drugs gave me a chance to find a donor.”
She has lived mostly in California lately to get access to those drugs and the UCLA Medical Center. But she hopes to return to Cleveland after her transplant.
Experimental drugs often aren’t an option for children, she said.
“So many times children get an acute form of leukemia, and there is very little time to find a donor,” she said. “And the more donors in the bank, the better the chances.”
Linda said she believes in miracles.
“For the first year I was diagnosed, I did my share of doubting the Lord,” she said.
Then, “I had a spiritual awakening,” she said. “My mother hit me over the head and said, ‘How ungrateful can you be? This is the way the Lord is testing you.’”
With support from family, close friends and people she didn’t even know, Linda made it. She has kept her disease a secret because she and Donald are “very, very private,” she said.
They did share their struggle with Bill Hilton, who works with Donald at the Cleveland plant. Hilton gave Linda a bookmark that she has carried with her for four years.
“For I will restore health unto thee and I will heal thee ... sayeth the Lord” it reads, a passage from Jeremiah 30:17.
“I’ve kept it in my handbag and drawn strength from it,” she said. “If I get a little down, I pull it out.”
Perhaps Linda’s story can serve as a “bookmark” for others, a reminder that “miracles do happen,” she said.
Contact Emily Ford at 704-797-4280 or news@salisburypost.com
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