The DePaolo family

by Carol Crump
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 2:08 PM MDT

Two years ago, Dr. Hugh DePaolo pushed his wife Mimi around the track in a wheelchair for the Relay For Life Victory Lap.

Next to the Casper OB/GYN, his sister-in law Jo pushed his dad Camillo in another wheelchair.

Grandpa DePaolo had been fighting thyroid cancer for more than 10 years, with what Jo said seemed like major surgery every year.

Both Mimi and Jo were surviving early stage breast cancer, and the family patriarch and his daughters-in-law had experienced treatment together.

“How could sisters-in-law have cancer at the same time, and grandpa at the same time?” Jo asked, musing with a smile that maybe part of the Rocky Mountain Oncology Center should be named for the family.

This year, Jo, who will be celebrating three cancer-free years in August, will be back for another victory lap. So will Hugh, and possibly Hugh’s brother and Jo’s husband, Ron.

The DePaolo family will be there to celebrate the lives of Grandpa Camillo, who died of thyroid cancer in January 2006 and Mimi, lost at the age of 44 to inoperable metastatic breast cancer in her lungs and brain the same month as her father-in-law.

The DePaolo brothers also will be part of Relay For Life because this year they have more at stake than what Hugh described as a “great celebration of who and what they (Camillo and Mimi) were.”

The Casper physician and his younger brother are both battling cancers of their own.

“Old man’s disease”

Ron DePaolo was diagnosed last year with myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder that Ron calls “an old man’s disease” because it is a gradually developing disease more commonly seen in older men.

Myelofibrosis isn’t technically cancer, but the scarring of the bone marrow over time leads to what could be a type of leukemia where the bone marrow doesn’t produce enough red blood cells.

The younger DePaolo, who is still working as an estimator and project manager for Automation & Electronics, fell ill last year on a trip to Mexico.

When he wasn’t recovering from the gall bladder surgery that followed, Hugh, who he laughingly calls his “gynecologist,” sent him to a specialist who diagnosed myelofibrosis.

Ron’s anemia is being treated with packed cell blood transfusions, but a bone marrow transplant could be his best option. He hopes the summer heat won’t keep him from making at least one Victory Lap with his wife and brother.

“You manage it, or it manages you,” Ron said of his disease.

Hugh’s battle

This spring, Hugh DePaolo was diagnosed with a fairly rare tumor of the GI tract called GIST (gastrointestinal stromal cell tumor). He said that one day in April, he went to Taco John’s for lunch after feeling faint in surgery.

When he noticed his hand was “really white,” he wondered if he had myelofibrosis like Ron, or possibly a gastrointestinal bleed from the stress of his father’s and wife’s death in January and his brother’s illness.

Blood tests and a GI work-up showed a growth on his pancreas and a tumor on his kidney. His doctor advised him against surgery and said he might have four to six months to live.

Hugh said he went away for the weekend to make a list of things to do and see before he died.

“The list was this long,” he said, holding two fingers two inches apart.

He added that the list of what to do to get ready to do the things on the list was three pages.

Hugh’s final diagnosis was GIST, a cancer he said has a better prognosis that means he won’t be closing his OB/GYN practice “until I can’t stand up anymore.”

He is being treated through M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston with one of the three chemotherapy medications to which GIST is responsive. Just like his brother, he receives transfusions of packed red blood cells to raise his hemoglobin level.

Jo said the two are in constant competition for better hemoglobin numbers.

The false rumors about Hugh’s illness that circulated seemingly on their own around the community were a problem, Jo said. People came to her at the downtown bank where she works with rumors about Hugh.

His office staff had heard he was dying before the test results were in. His mother Joyce was told at her bowling league that her son had a brain tumor and three months to live before Hugh could call her with the correct information.

“Rumors got out before he had a chance to do what he needed to do,” Jo said.

In a family with five members diagnosed with cancer or cancer-related illnesses, Ron said his mother Joyce has been the strongest.

“Mom was the toughest in this whole flippin’ fiasco,” said Ron.

The family’s ordeals with cancer have strengthened a spirituality that Hugh said is stronger than he realized.

“You have to believe in something beyond or you’ll spend a lot of time petrified of the unknown,” he said.

“If you sit and think you’re gonna die in three months to a year and a half, the temptation is to go crazy. I trust in God enough to get me through.”

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