Helping kids be cancer-free
Greta Perske
Greta Perske usually played the full 90 minutes of each soccer game, coming out to rest only at halftime. But in the summer of 2006, her soccer coach noticed she was having breathing trouble.
That seemed odd to her parents, Joe and Jan Perske of Sartell, Minn. Greta was a three-sport athlete who never had trouble keeping up.
Now, Greta felt tired all the time. When she came home one day with a sore throat, her mother took her to the doctor, thinking that she probably had strep throat. The Perskes were shocked when doctors told them that Greta had chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a slowly progressing cancer of the blood and bone marrow.
Doctors started Greta on oral chemotherapy the day after her diagnosis. Because her disease was slow-moving, immediately starting a more intense treatment regimen wasn’t necessary. But the Perske’s knew that someday she would need a blood and marrow transplant (BMT).
Greta wanted to have the BMT right away. “I knew I would be fine,” she says.
Her mom told her that the transplant might end her days playing varsity soccer, but that didn’t change her mind.
So just after midnight on March 15, 2007, Greta received a BMT at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital, under the care of Margaret MacMillan, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at the University.
“She’s phenomenal,” says Jan. “All of the doctors were absolutely wonderful. … We feel like we were in the best hands.”
Now more than two years after her diagnosis, and after a series of complications, Greta is cancer-free and determined to finish her senior soccer season with her Sartell High School team. “No is not an option,” Greta says.
