Strand Notebook | Myrtle Beach woman starts Myeloma support group to raise awareness

March is National Multiple Myeloma Awareness Month.

Janet Kerrigan of Myrtle Beach is trying to make more people aware of it every day. She is starting a support group for multiple myeloma patients, their families and anyone else who wants to learn about the devastating cancer that she has been struggling with since 2011.

Kerrigan, who was diagnosed at 56, speaks about multiple myeloma at various events along the eastern part of the country. “I try to give back,” she said. “I try to help whoever I can. So many people do not know what multiple myeloma is. It is the second most common blood cancer, with over 100,000 patients diagnosed in the U.S., and 70 percent of those patients experience severe pain.”

While there is no cure, there is hope, she said.

“Scientists are working hard on finding a cure. There’s a lot of hope right now. I’m hoping this new T-cell therapy will be the cure-all for this awful cancer.”

Multiple myeloma can also be financially devastating.

Kerrigan said that one of the medications costs $800 per pill, and that she and other multiple myeloma patients have to take one pill every day. “There are grants out there to help people, but if you don’t know where to find them, they’re no good to you.”

Kerrigan knows how it feels to basically get a death sentence with an estimated lifetime of maybe five years.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” she said. “At first you feel numb because you really don’t believe you’re hearing what you’re hearing. Afterward, I became very sad — very, very sad. I had lost my identity, my profession. I couldn’t go back to work.”

“It took me about three months to come to terms with it and to decide ‘I’m going to live the best life I can while I have life. I’m going to give back and help people.’ That’s the caring part of me. That’s who I am and who I want to continue to be.”

Kerrigan worked as a registered nurse for 38 years. Eight of those years were spent working in a local hospital. She was at work in 2011 when she had sharp chest pains, and what was thought to be trouble with her heart turned out to be multiple myeloma. Two days after the pains began, her doctor gave her a diagnosis and a prognosis; she might have about five years to live.

After her initial diagnosis, she had chemotherapy treatments for about six months. In June of 2012, she had a stem cell transplant at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). “I lived there for 31 days,” she said. “It’s quite an ordeal to go through. You have to be pretty strong to go through it.”

Last November, she relapsed, and has been having chemotherapy two times per week since then. But she remains hopeful and committed to helping others.

The support group will meet on the second Thursday of every month from 4-6 p.m. at Tidelands Health Conference Center, 4367 Riverwood Drive in Murrells Inlet. For more information email jleighk10@hotmail.com, call 655-3462 or visit Janet Kerrigan Foundation on Facebook.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "Strand Notebook | Myrtle Beach woman starts Myeloma support group to raise awareness."