Butcher battles marrow rejection
KASILOF, Alaska — Susan Butcher’s long road to recovery from leukemia has hit a roadblock, forcing the weakened, four-time Iditarod champion into a fierce, secondary battle if she is to once again assume her role as mother to daughters Tekla and Chisana.
Butcher’s toughness and resolve is legendary. But this time, it isn’t fierce winds and cold on the home stretch to Nome, nor is she battling the slopes of Mt. McKinley. According to the Web diary of her husband, David Monson, Butcher is fighting to hold down food and to be able to move her limbs as she lies in a bed at a Seattle hospital famed for its cancer treatment. An article by Jeff Richardson that ran July 23 in Butcher’s hometown newspaper, the “Fairbanks Daily News-Miner,” summed up her fight within a fight. The battle now is with Graft Versus Host Disease:
Dr. Jan. Abkowitz, Butcher’s doctor for the past four years at University of Washington Medical Center, said a bone marrow transplant performed on May 16 has been successful in clearing Butcher’s system of cancer, and that all of her blood cells are now being created by the donor cells. But her body’s response to the transplant itself is threatening Butcher.
The latest complication is Graft Versus Host Disease, which emerges in more than half of marrow transplant patients. The disease causes the donor cells to perceive Butcher’s own cells as invaders, causing the immune system to fight them. The condition is making Butcher’s body attack its own digestive system, resulting in symptoms that include abdominal pain.
The condition isn’t deteriorating, Abkowitz said, but various treatments haven’t improved it. In its most serious form, GVHD can be life threatening.
“She’s been kind of holding her own and not improving,” Abkowitz said. “Rather than getting worse, she’s not getting better.”
Since the usual treatments for GVHD aren’t helping, doctors have turned to an experimental therapy. Butcher is just one of a handful of people using it. And that means doctors are unsure just where the process will lead, which only adds to the heart-wrenching uncertainty for her daughters and husband.
Butcher, 51, was the second woman to win the Iditarod, in 1986. She then dominated the race for the remainder of the decade with victories in 1987 and ‘88, then again in 1990. Her success behind leaders Granite and Tolstoy helped propel the race into the national spotlight. Butcher may not have been running the Iditarod for the past decade, but she has hardly turned her back on the race. She has been a fixture at many of the checkpoints, following the leaders most of the way up the trail.
Her diagnosis sent a shock wave throughout the mushing community in December, and she has been undergoing both radiation and chemotherapy since.
There was a window between rounds of that punishing therapy at just the right time this year for Butcher to enjoy her usual checkpoint-to-checkpoint view of the Iditarod. The whole family flew in to Ruby to meet the racers. A laughing Butcher briefly took over race-checker duties as Doug Swingley and DeeDee Jonrowe came in, bringing smiles to their weather-beaten faces and emphatic hugs from Jonrowe.
Since then, the family has been back down in Seattle for the marrow transplant and recovery.
Monson, now juggling the taxing role as his wife’s No. 1 caregiver while still being a dad to his daughters, took an emotional low blow a few days ago when his one source of relief - his bicycle - was stolen from where he locked it at the hospital. Monson would mentally regroup while he rode from the hospital to the family’s temporary home nearby.
Word of the theft reached the Iditarod Trail Committee, which swung into action, said Chas St. George, Iditarod spokesman. The result is a loaner bicycle from the Seattle Bicycle Alliance, he said.
“At this point David’s the glue,” St. George said. “I mean, it’s real important … He’s what’s keeping everything together right now. Susan’s not in a position right now to fight. The girls aren’t in a position to do anything but hope and pray. He’s just an unbelievable guy. That family epitomizes family.”
ESPY nominee Scdoris racing … Africa?
Yes, Africa.
Rachael Scdoris, the first legally blind musher to complete the Iditarod, was fresh off attending the annual ESPN sports awards in mid-July, where she was a nominee, when her sponsors jetted her to South Africa to compete in the South African Highlands Sled Dog Championship.
The event is a mixture of cart races and foot races in this snowless yet obviously sled dog-crazed region of the world. Scdoris is a runner, and likely will compete with one or two dogs in the 3-kilometer foot race, said her father, Jerry, home in Bend, Ore. Organizers of the event, July 28-30 in Belfast, South Africa, were excited to have an Iditarod finisher among the estimated 200 participants, according to Scdoris’ father and race publicity.
The musher was guest speaker at a press conference held at a local casino, where she arrived driving a team of dogs pulling a wheeled sled.
A flier announcing Scdoris’ participation describes the Iditarod as “The most grueling sled dog race of 1,049 miles across the frozen wastes of Alaska from Anchorage to Nome.” Somehow I doubt someone living along the Iditarod route would term their home hunting and fishing grounds a “frozen waste.” (As a frequent traveler of the trail, including five times by dog sled, I’m hard-pressed to label anywhere on the Iditarod as a “frozen waste,” aside from, perhaps, Anchorage.)
Scdoris spent mid-July in Los Angeles, attending ESPN’s annual sports awards show, where she had been nominated with two others for best female athlete with a disability. Sarah Reinertsen, a triathlete with an artificial leg who is competitive in the Ironman race in Hawaii, won the ESPY award in that category. The other nominee was Laurie Stephens, a skier.
Jerry Scdoris said other athletes at the awards show were familiar with both Rachael’s accomplishment and the Iditarod itself. They spent time talking about the race with ESPN’s Chris Burman, NFL receiver Dante Stallworth and American figure skater Kimmie Meisner, among others.
Osmar dog tired in July
Dean Osmar, the 1984 Iditarod champion, has his hands full every July trying to earn the bulk of his living the way he has done it his whole life: by commercial salmon fishing. Osmar maintains 15 210-foot-long nets anchored to the bottom of Cook Inlet within sight of his house atop a sandy bluff in Kasilof.
This year the result is a mixed bag. His crew of nine, including Cody Niggemyer, son of former Iditarod race manager Jack Niggemyer, picked nets for 38 days in a row starting June 16, as state fishery managers tried to target the healthy run of sockeye salmon swimming toward the Kasilof River. “There were a couple of days we caught 4,000 fish, which is incredible,” Osmar said. “Those two days are a big part of our season.” For the rest of the short season, which ends in early August, there has been a lot of work but much less production. Still, with prices paid to fishermen of $1.05 to $1.50 per pound, Osmar has made enough to pay the crew and cover a few bills. The bulk of the Kasilof sockeyes weigh a shade over 4 pounds.
These are the same kind of salmon, also known as “reds,” that are so popular when fished in May near the Copper River. Osmar said some of the Cook Inlet reds were shipped out fresh to restaurants and stores this summer, too.
Jack Niggemyer has been down to Osmar’s fish site to say hello, as has Doug Swingley and a few other mushers. They pop in every year, Osmar said. Osmar has built an impressive dog team in the past few years, most recently leasing some of his dogs to DeeDee Jonrowe for the Iditarod. What’s in store for Osmar this winter? He’s never one to decide until the last minute anyway, but he also said he’s so focused on fishing in July that races aren’t even on the radar.