Donnie Jones
Donnie Jones’ Facebook page lists his work as being, “Happily Retired.” The key to that phrase is the “happily” part. Because for much of his retirement, the 72-year-old Jones has been participating in a UAB clinical trial for the treatment of a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Since 2019, Jones has been on a regimen of taking a daily pill for seven consecutive days every other week. This has required him to make the two-hour round trip from his home in Altoona to UAB approximately once a month for evaluation. But by making that regular trek, Jones also is also able to make the regular drive to pick up his granddaughter from school.
“I’m going on my seventh year of taking the trial medication, and the cancer is still in remission,” Jones says. “Really, everything about UAB has been a pleasure. They’ve gone out of their way to make things easier for me. Since I pick up my granddaughter from school every afternoon, they schedule my visits for in the morning so I can get back home in time. They’ve been great to me.”
After his initial cancer diagnosis, Jones underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his right arm, followed by a round of chemotherapy. But the chemo was only partially effective, and Jones still had swelling in his lymph nodes.
That is when Jones was referred to Amitkumar Mehta, M.D., an Associate Professor of Medicine at UAB and director of the Lymphoma Program. Mehta says Jones faced “very limited treatment options.” So Mehta suggested a clinical trial involving a molecule that was so experimental it didn’t even have a name yet; it simply was called “ESTX0660.” But that did not deter Jones.
“Dr. Mehta and the nurses explained everything to me about what they expected this trial to do,” Jones says. “Sometimes you just have to trust the doctor. I know absolutely nothing about medicine. They told me this should help my situation, so I just went with it.”
According to Mehta, the trial drug inhibits the proteins that cause healthy cells to die, and blocks the continued growth of the cancer cells. He says Jones had had “an excellent response with no serious side effects.”
“In addition to treating the cancer, the most important part is making sure the patient is able to live a normal life, and Mr. Jones has done that,” Mehta says. “Cancer is a very scary diagnosis. But cancer survival has improved over the last couple of decades, and part of the reason is we have good clinical trials like this one.”
In addition to keeping the cancer in check, Jones has experienced another health benefit while undergoing his treatment. He recently quit smoking, a habit he maintained throughout his 26 years in the U.S. Navy.
“I actually smoked quite heavily,” Jones says. “When I quit smoking, Dr. Mehta thought that was the greatest thing in the world.”