In late 2018, Louise Boland started feeling sick. At first, she thought it was her autoimmune disease, sarcoidosis, coming back. But when the treatment didn’t work and she kept getting sicker, her doctors began to look for other problems. They found nothing.
“I just could not feel better,” she says. An avid runner and fitness center owner, Louise was normally very active and knew something was wrong. “I held a 75th birthday party for myself in May 2019 because I wasn’t sure I was going to make it much longer,” she says.
A few days later, Louise woke to find a group of friends and family around her bed. “They had called an ambulance and told me I was going to Boston for treatment.”
Louise was admitted to BMC and stayed for 10 days. During that time, she had a biopsy of a lymph node in her groin. On June 2, she met with Dr. Mark Sloan and learned she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “He said I needed six months of treatment with very powerful chemotherapy drugs,” she recalls. “Then he told me if I don’t have any interruptions in my treatment, he believed my cancer would be put into remission.”
Louise held onto Dr. Sloan’s words as she spent the next six months undergoing treatment every other week. “One day, my eldest son helped me walk around the nurses’ station and told them all I had run a half marathon the year before. They all thought I was so amazing, but I couldn’t understand why. I was just determined to get through the treatment.”
Although the chemotherapy wasn’t easy, Louise says it never made her feel sick. About a month into treatment, she started to feel better, and soon after she was able to start working again.
Throughout her journey, Louise has been grateful for the support of her two sons and her many friends. She also appreciated the kindness of her team at BMC. She developed a close relationship with one nurse, Ryan, who Louise says was pivotal during her treatment.
In January of 2020, Louise learned her cancer was in remission. Now 79, she walks 4 miles a day and is back to teaching at her gym. Her advice to other patients is not to give up hope. "Stay positive and don’t surrender, no matter how you’re feeling.”