>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Linda Pereira

Pereira had planned to get her transplant at a medical center in Portland. She opted for the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

Pereira said she was impressed after learning that the SCCA performs more than 400 bone marrow transplants a year, many times more than any other medical center in the Northwest.

The SCCA is a unit of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the University of Washington Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center. It is the only federally designated comprehensive cancer center in the Northwest, according to its website, www.seattlecca.org .

“I know that I am in very good hands,’’ Pereira said

Pereira is facing difficult odds. The SCCA doctors have told her that her leukemia has advanced to a dangerous stage. Still, doctors say there is reason for optimism. They believe that a different standard needs to be used when evaluating Pereira’s chances because she makes a habit of defying odds.

They look at things such as vasculitis, an inflammation of blood vessels that struck Pereira in the spring of 2002 and came close to claiming her life. She was flown to the University of Washington Medical Center where she was in a medically induced coma for about six weeks. Doctors struggled to clear her lungs of blood and fluid.

Pereira’s survival had doctors shaking their heads.

“The doctors think the only reason I made it is because of my optimistic personality,’’ Pereira said. “I’m a character, no doubt about it.’’

The leukemia Pereira suffers from today was caused by the chemo therapy treatment she received for non-Hodgkins lymphoma in late 2005. This lymphoma has been in remission for two years. Unfortunately, about 5 percent of the people who receive treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma develop leukemia caused by the drugs used to treat it, Pereira said.

Doctors at SCCA are not used to seeing someone who has suffered such a withering gauntlet of medical problems. 

“They are excited to take on my case because my medical history is so complicated,’’ Pereira said.

She said her lead physician at SCCA met with her for 4 1/2 hours recently to discuss her case. He did so after meeting with a team of 12 other doctors who had spent the better part of a weekend studying her case.

The bone marrow transplant at SCCA will cost Pereira $60,000. A community-fundraising campaign that started in late September raised all but about $1,000 of the amount needed, which is about $28,000 less than originally anticipated since Pereira decided to have the transplant done at SCCA rather than in Portland.

Pereira’s Medicare insurance will not cover the cost of the bone marrow transplant because her leukemia has not yet progressed to stage 3.

The money Pereira has raised is a credit to the community and her family and friends.

“I have the best family and friends in the world,’’ Pereira said.

Several of these friends will be voluntarily living in the Pereiras’ home in Cove to provide security.

Pereira said that friends and others who know of her condition are struck by how vibrant and energetic she appears.

“They say, ‘As sick as you are you are looking pretty healthy.’ ’’

Pereira believes it may be because she is always laughing, seeing humor when others in her position might despair. She attributes this to endorphins, a chemical created by the pituitary gland that makes people feel good.

“Laughter produces a lot of endorphins. There is nothing like endorphins,’’ she said.