- Julia Pallentino, a Tallahassee grandmother, started the city's only Multiple Myeloma support group to help other facing the same diagnosis.
- She recovered using CAR-T therapy, which reprograms a patient’s immune cells to attack cancer.
- Watch the video to see how she's spreading local awareness about CAR-T therapy.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
“It changes your life,” Pallentino said. “I cycled from one chemo to another until I had used all of them that were available."
Northeast grandmother Julia Pallentino is using her second chance at life to raise awareness about a new cancer treatment.
In 2011, doctors diagnosed her with Multiple Myeloma, a rare blood cancer.
The National Cancer Institute estimated about 192,000 people in the U.S living with it as of 2022.
“How long have you been cancer free?"
"A little over two years," she said.
Her recovery is thanks to emerging research on CAR-T Cell Therapywhere doctors change a patient's blood cells to attack cancer.
"Average life expectancy for Multiple Myeloma, if you ask Google, maybe four or five years ago, was maybe two years or three years, three and a half years. I don't remember when was the last time my Myeloma patient died,” Patel said.
Dr. Pareshkumar Patel says this research is especially urgent in Leon County.
His office is seeing more cases than expected.
"We have 150 offices across the Florida. This office has higher numbers of Multiple Myeloma for some reason,” he said.
As Pallentino's life's returns to normal —
"I'm still able to do almost everything that I did before, including scuba diving,” she said.
She is also operating the only support group for the disease in Tallahassee.
About 15 to 20 people attend the meetings.
“We can spread the word. I will tell you that people come, some usually having just been diagnosed, and they're terrified. It's a scary thing, and they leave, I hope, feeling much more hopeful,” Pallentino
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