Carole Russell

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.


The TL;DR version:  Carole was diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuro-Endocrine cancer in January 2019.    Neuro-Endocrine is one of those rare sneaky cancers people don't know they have.  People often die within months of diagnosis.    The initial prognosis was "4 days to a year if you respond well to treatment".      The tumors DID respond to treatment.  A newly approved immunotherapy worked wonders.....except with one tumor, which kept growing rapidly.    That tumor was removed in March 2020, and to multiple oncologists' surprise it was a second rare cancer: leiomyosarcoma.      With two cancers,  Carole became ineligible for clinical trials.    When new growths showed up in Carole's abdomen and lungs the question was -- which cancer is it?    The lung tumors were confirmed to be leiomyosarcoma.   Carole went through 4 chemo treatments that slowed growth, but didn't stop it.     A second line treatment worked at first, but has petered out.    The third line treatment seemed to be working until recently on all tumors but one (confirmed to be leiomyosarcoma by biopsy)...and then 20 tumors were found in her brain.   Carole entered hospice on November 5, and died at home on December 5th.