PHOTO COURTESY MADDIE WOJTALEWICZ
June Lewis and Pat Basu, MD, MBA, president and chief executive officer of Cancer Treatment Centers of America Global, Inc. pose for a photo during the Celebrate Life tree-planting ceremony on June 7 at the facility in Zion, Illinois.

By Rachel Ravina, Staff Writer

(June 27, 2019) For June Lewis, a 67-year-old Berlin resident, her trip to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America’s Celebrate Life earlier this month was special.

“It was just wonderful. It was just perfect,” Lewis said. “Everything was grand.”

Lewis, a Stage IV lung cancer patient, was one of 100 people honored during the 31st annual conference on June 7 in Zion, Illinois for National Cancer Survivor Month.

“Having Stage IV Lung Cancer and being here at Celebrate Life is truly remarkable,” Lewis said during the conference. “I praise my doctors at CTCA Chicago.”
While Lewis participated in a tree-planting ceremony, she said her “cancer is controllable, it’s not curable.”

Lewis said her urologist Dr. Mark Edeny, M.D., of Chesapeake Urology in Salisbury found a tumor on her lung during a scan after her kidney was removed. She said the cancer had also metastasized to her mediastinum, liver, L-4 vertebrae on her spine, and her left hip.

“It was very aggressive,” Lewis said.

Lewis said she became affiliated with the Cancer Treatment Centers of America following her diagnosis. For the first four-and-a-half years of her treatment, she traveled to Chicago once a month. She’s been going every six weeks for the past year.

Lewis said since working with her doctors, she’s undergone genomic testing and found she has an ALK gene mutation, which is known to drive the growth of cancer, but is becoming more treatable with chemotherapy that inhibits the chemical driver the mutation produces. Lewis takes chemotherapy twice a day in pill form.

“It has kept it under control for five and a half years,” she said.

While she may have worried her diagnosis could have meant a bleak outcome, she said she felt she was in good hands with her medical team at Cancer Treatments of America.

“When you tell somebody you’re Stage IV Lung Cancer they say, ‘Oh my God, she’s gonna die tomorrow,’” Lewis said. “And that’s the first thing I thought, ‘Oh my God, my life’s over,’ but it’s not, it just began.”

Overall, she said her medical experience has been pleasant.

“It was just like walking into heaven when you go in there,” Lewis said.

Lewis said she has three granddaughters and has been able to witness their creative performances since starting her treatments.

“I got to see [my] oldest [granddaughter] play at Carnegie Hall,” Lewis said.

Additionally, Lewis said she’s able to do household chores and run her charter bus company. She said this experience has changed her life forever.

“It’s give[n] my life back to me. I can do most everything,” Lewis said.