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Kathy Kupka produced humorous greeting cards to help her as she fought myeloma.
Long-Term Myeloma Survivor Uses Photos, Humor to Inspire
| April 18, 2018 | In April 2001, I was photographing a young boy in my home studio and decided to bring my cockapoo, Buddie, to the photo session to make the boy laugh. When I bent over to pick up my little dog, I broke my collarbone. My doctor told me I had Multiple Myeloma…
And so began 17-year myeloma survivor Kathy Kupka’s journey with cancer, as chronicled in the preface of her photo gift book, “Cancer is Ruff but There IS Treatment.” Originally published in 2014, it features humorous photos of more than 80 expressive canines along with captions listing the numerous side effects she and others with cancer experience.
“It’s for the patients, the people who go through this,” said the Leesburg, Virginia, resident. “I had a lady just the other day who said ‘I’ve just finished my treatment and I’m sending my husband over to get a copy of your book so my grandkids will know what I’m going through.’”
Kupka, 68, worked for years as a secretary before following her lifelong interest in photography by taking evening classes and switching careers in September 2000, mere months before she was diagnosed with myeloma. As a professional photographer, she began with children’s portraits before expanding to client’s dogs.
Before publishing her book, Kupka produced humorous greeting cards featuring canines and retailing for $5 each.
“I already had all these photographs in my collection and I just waited until I came up with just the right caption for an image,” she said. “I didn’t have one for night sweats so I went to my friend’s house and soaked down her poor little dog,” she recalled, laughing.
In both her book and greeting cards, Kupka strives to be encouraging and compassionate but is also realistic.
“I don’t put in here, ‘You’re going to make it’ because not everybody does.”
She first published a hardback edition for $19.95 and later a softcover version for $12.95. She’s sold about 800 copies through several gift shops and online via Etsy and her own website.
The idea for the book came about after she’d created a slide show featuring photos of dogs to illustrate her life’s journey.
“When I came to the part about having cancer, its treatment and side effects, that’s when the audiences always started laughing.”
In November 2000, two months after transitioning to her new career, Kupka was returning home from a photography trade show in New York when she was hospitalized for nine days with pneumococcal pneumonia. In January 2001, she noticed back pains she’d never had before. They started low and traveled to her neck.
Complaining to her physician back home, he told her she needed to stretch more before exercising. An orthopedic surgeon’s subsequent diagnosis revealed lesions all over, including in her hip and skull; broken ribs; and crushed vertebrae. Kupka was then referred to an oncologist.
My doctor told me I had Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells. As he was reading the diagnosis of this disease I never heard of, my husband was taking notes, and I just kept thinking, what’s he going to say, 6 months, 12 months, how long do I have? And then I heard him say ‘There’s no cure, but there IS treatment.” Alright! Let’s get started! wrote Kupka in her book’s preface.
Here I was in Virginia and thinking, ‘Ok, where’s the best place to go for this disease I’ve never heard of? I’m thinking it must be somewhere like Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Maryland, or New York. No, the experts are in Little Rock, Arkansas. I was shocked when I learned the best place in the world to go for treatment of myeloma was here.”
She arrived at the UAMS Myeloma Institute in the spring of 2001 and was treated by Guido Tricot, M. D., Ph. D, a hematologist originally from Belgium.
“I called Dr. Tricot on a Friday and he called me back that same evening,” Kupka said. “He said, ‘We’re talking cure here.’” At the institute, she received two stem-cell transplants, the first in late 2001 and the second in early 2002.
Kupka, who took part in phase two of the institute’s clinical trials and was given thalidomide, went into remission after her first transplant. In between the two transplants, she received chemotherapy at home. After her transplants, she was on maintenance for two years with chemotherapy and steroids.
“What was so nice about coming to the Myeloma Institute is that you’re around all these other people who have the same disease you’d never heard of before. But what I love the most about Little Rock is the people; everyone is so nice and the staff at the institute isre so nice.”
Kupka has been in remission since her treatment.
“Back when I was diagnosed, most people with multiple myeloma only lived an additional five years,” she said, add. “When I saw Dr. Tricot last year, he told me he thinks I’ll die of something else.”
As she survived her battle with myeloma, she’s watched cancer take some of her loved ones and friends – including husband Rich who was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma and died of a hospital-acquired infection in 2012. The next year, she lost her beloved dog Buddie (featured on the cover of her book) and in 2014, her daughter Shani, then 43, died in a car accident. Her family today includes her 48-year-old son Tom, his five children and her late daughter’s dog Sandy, a Catahoula hound mix.
When Tricot left UAMS in 2007 to launch and lead the Utah Blood and Marrow Transplant and Myeloma Program at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, Kupka followed him. In 2012, when he joined the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa Health Care in Iowa City, Ia., she again followed him.
When Tricot retired and returned to Little Rock to be closer to family, he recommended that Kupka, now disease-free, return to the UAMS Myeloma Institute. She now visits annually with Frits van Rhee, M. D., Ph. D.
“Anytime anyone asks me to talk to someone who’s been newly diagnosed, I always highly recommend they come here. You feel confident when you’re here. It’s a research center and they are the experts.”
Until treatment, I didn’t know about the side effects I would experience. Along with my loving, supportive, caring family and friends, I had Buddie to comfort me during my treatments. I also had my photography to help keep me distracted.
I received many get well cards with images of dogs. They made me smile. I hope my photography of the dogs in this book will make you smile as well, writes Kupka in concluding her preface.
To learn more about Kupka, visit www.kathykupka.com. Visit http://www.cancerisruff.com for more info on her book.
“Photography has been my therapy,” Kupka said. “Even when I lost my family, it’s still been my therapy. I wouldn’t change this experience,” she said of her journey with myeloma and the friends in Little Rock she’s made along the way.