Arminta Graham is quick to tell everyone, “CAR T therapy is the best thing that ever happened to me.” But when she was first offered the treatment in December 2022, she wasn’t sure she wanted it. “I had never heard of CAR T and was afraid to try something new,” she says. A few weeks later, she changed her mind and became the first patient at BMC to receive this life-saving therapy.
Arminta was diagnosed with lymphoma in October 2022 after several trips to the hospital for terrible shoulder and neck pain. The cancer had caused her neck to break. “Learning I had cancer was the shock of my life,” she says. “I have always been very healthy and had never been in the hospital for anything, except to give birth to my three daughters.”
After her diagnosis, Arminta had three rounds of chemotherapy, but her doctors didn’t see any improvement. Although she had no side effects from the treatment, Arminta had so much pain in her bones that it was hard to do anything. “I could tell I was getting sicker,” she says.
That’s when she met Dr. Fabio Petrocca, director of the CAR T-cell Therapy Program at BMC. “He said he wanted to talk with me about getting CAR T,” she says. “I told him I didn’t think I wanted it, but he asked me to talk with my family about it. They told me it might be worth a try because the chemo wasn’t working, and they didn’t want to lose me.” So, the next time Dr. Petrocca suggested CAR T, Arminta agreed.
On December 26, Arminta went into BMC to have some of her T-cells removed. These cells were sent to a lab to be mixed with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that would turn them into the CAR T cells that would fight her cancer. She returned to BMC on January 9 to have the CAR T cells put into her body.
“I felt totally fine during the infusion, and had no side effects after,” Arminta says. After spending ten days in the hospital, Arminta was ready to go home. Even though she felt fine, everyone who gets CAR T needs to be closely watched for side effects after the infusion. “For 30 days, my three daughters and my six siblings cared for me around the clock. I was so grateful for their support,” she says. “But I never had a fever and never had any side effects. I started feeling more like myself after about a month.”
Arminta was declared cancer free the first week of April and rang the bell April 10. “Now I’m feeling great and can do everything I used to, like babysitting my six grandkids and great-grandson. I still can’t believe how blessed I am — I tell everyone, CAR T changed my life.”
Hear more from Arminta and her care team below, and learn how BMC is leading the way in providing CAR T-cell therapy to all eligible patients.