Living with cancer is different from surviving cancer, and the last thing University student Amelia Worth wants is to be known as is the woman surviving cancer.
“I feel like I’m more than just surviving it, I’m actually living with it,” Worth said. “And I love my life right now.”
“I might be a little naive, think I’m a little invincible, but I don’t think that I’m cancer, and I don’t think that cancer is me,” Worth said. “It’s just a part of my life. Everybody has some little crappy part of their life.”
Worth, a senior anthropology student from Coos Bay, was diagnosed on Jan. 29, 2004, with acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer that affects the production of white blood cells.
After two years of battling the life-threatening condition, Worth needs a second stem-cell transplant this summer, but the stem cells will have to come from a donor, which makes the procedure even more difficult. Worth is an only child and her parents aren’t viable donors because of their medical histories. There’s a significant possibility the second transplant will fail, and she will die.
“I’m scared shitless,” said Worth.
She said she focuses mostly on the idea that the transplant will work.
“I try to think more about the positive, like how much easier it’ll be, how much less transfusions,” Worth said. “For a long time, I was like, I’m going to die. I only have six months left to live, better make it my best. But, I’ve been doing a lot of things to better my body lately, like acupuncture, yoga, taking vitamins. They seem to be helping a lot. I’ve been having less transfusions lately.”
Worth made friends with four others who were also diagnosed with leukemia around the same time. These friends in particular helped and supported Worth during her treatments. Three of those friends have died from complications of MDS.
“It’s kind of hard to be lumped into a group of people where less than half of them survive,” Worth said. “You make such good friends. … I never went to any therapy group sessions or whatever, but just having friends that you made as a result of having this disease is amazing.”
Worth began losing weight and feeling overwhelmingly tired in late 2003. She made an appointment at the University Health Center to get checked out, she said.
The doctor diagnosed her with mononucleosis, commonly referred to as “mono,” which Worth already had before, she said. A few months passed, and Worth still felt sick.
During a cross-country skiing trip with her boyfriend, Worth fell, and one of her skies hit her shin and left an unusually bad bruise. Worth’s boyfriend, a University alumnus, insisted that she go to the hospital and have blood work done. She did, and that’s when she discovered she had leukemia.
A week after discovering the blood cancer, she was admitted to the hospital and began receiving chemotherapy. One of the worst side-effects of chemotherapy was “chemo brain,” Worth said, which felt like her brain wasn’t functioning properly. She had difficulty remembering, concentrating and speaking.
She still notices the effects today, but they’re not as strong as immediately after the treatments.
By February 2004, Worth had lost all of her hair but was in remission, meaning the cancer had disappeared but there was still a possibility it could return. She continued chemotherapy throughout March, and in April, Worth learned she needed a stem cell transplant to help regrow her bone marrow because the treatments had depleted it.
Stem cells are unspecialized cells that can divide repeatedly and form new, specialized cells. They are like the body’s repair system because they can replenish other weakened cells.
Worth had a procedure done in May 2004 that filtered her blood for its stem cells, which were then used in her stem cell transplant that July.
Throughout the next year, Worth regularly visited the doctor to check her blood cell count levels and monitor her bone marrow. Her cell counts slowly fell over the course of the year, and
in August 2005, Worth was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a condition in which the body doesn’t make its own bone marrow. The doctors told Worth the chemotherapy had caused the syndrome.
Technically, Worth is still in remission, but MDS can be fatal because of its effects on cell production and the immune system. MDS can also quickly turn into leukemia again.
Shortly after her MDS diagnosis, Worth began a new drug treatment therapy specifically targeting the syndrome. She completed the therapy in January, but it wasn’t as successful as Worth and her doctors hoped. Throughout all of her treatments, Worth has had blood transfusions several times per month.
The transfusions are regularly scheduled, but sometimes Worth has to have one unexpectedly, like Tuesday night, when her gums began bleeding. She went to the hospital for a transfusion, which lasts several hours.
The next stem-cell transplant will cost approximately $500,000, and Worth’s insurance will cover about 80 percent of it, she said. In addition to the that, Worth will need to move to Portland for several months to have the procedure and follow-up work done. Living expenses and finding a donor will also cost several thousand dollars, on top of the $100,000 Worth has to pay for the transplant that the insurance won’t cover.
The Amelia Worth Medical Fund at Umpqua Bank and the Amelia Worth Bone Marrow Fund at Bank of America have been set up to help pay for her medical costs. One of her friend’s dying wishes was for people to donate to Worth’s medical fund, and a friend of Worth’s mother established a medical charity for Worth’s family.
The Bank of America fund was set up this week, and cans have been placed at various businesses in Coos Bay to collect money for the family.
Patricia Worth, Amelia’s mother, said it’s difficult seeing her daughter’s face on cans everywhere.
“It’s really hard to see my child sick when she should be thriving and independent, cultivating a life of her own,” said Patricia Worth, Amelia’s mother. “She needs to rely on a whole lot of people right now and I think that this unto itself is a very powerful growth period for Amelia because she does get to learn to rely on people.”
Patricia Worth said that the family comes from a strong spiritual base, so when her daughter loses faith in her recovery, Patricia Worth is able to remind her of the many people in the community that do have that faith.
“We keep that vision and a higher watch for her,” Patricia Worth said.
Worth said her illness has taught her to appreciate life and her health much more. Worth’s plans for the future include traveling “the world at other people’s expense,” and she believes that staying active, working and carrying a full-course load have been important to living with cancer.
“If you don’t believe you’re going to survive and if you don’t have hopes and dreams for the future then you’re killing yourself because you don’t actually truly believe in it,” she said.

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