St. Francis receives $1 million

By Cindy Landrum  

JUNE 14, 2010 10:01 a.m. (0)

Bon Secours St. Francis Health System’s bone marrow transplant unit will soon more than double in size thanks to $1 million in donations from employees and community members.

The unit is the only one of its kind in the Upstate and one of two dedicated inpatient transplant units in South Carolina.

Blood and marrow transplantation is the preferred treatment for several types of cancers, including acute and chronic leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma.

The expansion will allow people dealing with some of the most pernicious cancers to fight the disease and not have to leave their family and friends – and their strongest supporters – behind to travel to distant hospitals for weeks and months at a time, said Barry Lynch, who said he provided the human story during the hospital’s fund-raising campaign.

Lynch’s wife, Susan, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, the same blood cancer that killed Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, in 1997.

They traveled to Little Rock, Ark., for treatment, often spending a month at a time.

Many of the other patients he saw there were alone.

“These battles are always hard, damn hard, and remoteness makes it immeasurably harder, sadder and lonelier,” he said. “It can’t help but have an impact on the patient.”

Lynch said a two-week stay in Little Rock turned into a three-week stay when Susan got really sick. A doctor on the floor told Lynch if he wanted his daughters, then ages 9 and 10, to see their mother alive one last time, he had better take her home the next morning.

Susan Lynch died after a 13-month battle with what doctors there told Lynch was the most aggressive case of the cancer they had seen.

“Nobody wants to be 700 miles away from home when the fight ends,” he said. “If it ends good, you want to be home celebrating with family. If it is bad, you just want to be home.”

Barbara Baker is undergoing an outpatient stem cell transplant as part of her treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The cancer was found in 90 percent of her bone marrow.

“I’ve had an anniversary, a Christmas and a birthday I wasn’t supposed to have,” said Baker, who originally was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given two months to live.

She has been staying in a hotel with her daughter, Sharon Powell, while undergoing procedures to harvest at least two million of her own stem cells. The stem cells will be frozen while Baker undergoes intensive chemotherapy. Once chemotherapy is completed, her stem cells will be put back into her body.

“That’s your new birthday,” Powell said.

Having the procedures done on an outpatient basis has allowed Baker to be close to the hospital and close to her family.

“It makes it possible that I can be here every day to help her (Baker) and still have my family in my life,” Powell said.

Baker said having her family nearby has helped her mentally throughout her treatment.

“It makes a difference having family there with you when you’re hurting,” she said.

The bone marrow transplant unit expansion will add five beds to the hospital’s inpatient unit, bringing the total to nine beds.

The expansion will also add a second dedicated nurses’ station, add six chair-beds to the pheresis center and outpatient unit. The additional chair-beds will give the hospital a 10-bed unit. The pheresis center will also be renovated and have additional space.

Work on the expansion will begin in mid-summer and is expected to be completed by the end of November.

Contact Cindy Landrum at 679-1237 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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