Ted Wagstaff, 61, worked as a business investor and advisor. He had a wife and three children, and everything seemed well.
When he was on a work trip last spring, however, he began to feel unwell with intense abdominal cramps.
The news hit hard, but Wagstaff said the hardest moment was telling his children.
As testing went on, the outlook grew more serious. Doctors discovered he had double-hit lymphoma, a rare subtype of blood cancer that grows quickly and is notoriously hard to treat.
Wagstaff started treatment right away at The Ottawa Hospital. Unlike many cancers, however, his did not respond to standard chemotherapy.
This approach allowed Wagstaff to remain an outpatient while receiving continuous chemotherapy through a portable pump.
Doctors inserted a thin catheter into his bicep and threaded it across his chest and into his heart.
Rather than going to the hospital for short infusions, Wagstaff was given a small backpack containing chemotherapy drugs and a pump that delivered medication around the clock.
The backpack went everywhere with him from Monday to Friday. He slept with it, showered with it, and even took walks while wearing it.
Every day, he would go back to the hospital for a new bag. By the end of his treatment, Wagstaff had undergone a total of 487 hours of chemotherapy.
Even with everything, Wagstaff stayed determined; he was prepared to do whatever it took to beat the cancer.
This method is often used for aggressive cancers that do not respond well to standard chemotherapy, including double-hit lymphoma.
Dr. Imrie said the constant delivery of medication over the course of the week allows doctors to target cancer cells whenever they are actively dividing.
He also pointed out that Ottawa has become a leader in offering these advance treatments on an outpatient basis. In many other places, patients like Wagstaff would likely need to stay in the hospital for extended periods.
After going through multiple rounds of intense treatment, Wagstaff was told his cancer was in complete remission – words he had longed to hear for a long time.
He said he is extremely grateful to the doctors and nurses who were there for him every step of the way.
