Phil Lake started his life fighting cancer. He had a kidney removed as part of his treatment for Wilms Tumor, a lifethreatening malignancy that occurs in infants and young children. Phil recovered and had a normal childhood. But being diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma years later at age 39 left this cancer ‘veteran’ completely stunned: what started with a clinic visit for suspected pneumonia has ended up being the battle of his life.

For years Phil Lake worked in power plants as a millwright, often traveling for his employer far from his home in West Virginia. In March of 2000, he was working in Delaware when he began to experience vague respiratory symptoms including a cough and trouble catching his breath. Phil figured he had the flu or a cold that had been made worse by winter weather and the stress of being away from home.

After spending a “small fortune” in over-the-counter remedies without success, he decided to go to a local walk-in clinic for some antibiotics to treat his problem. As part of their usual protocol, the clinic obtained a chest x-ray. “That’s when things got scary,” Phil remembers. ”Doctors and nurses were running around, hooking me up to oxygen and calling for an ambulance. Everyone looked so serious.”

The clinic doctor, unable to see Phil’s left lung on the x-ray, immediately had Phil admitted to the local medical center. Phil recalls his initial difficulty in grasping the full scope of his situation. “I kept insisting that I just needed some antibiotics so I could go home and get well again. And the doctor kept saying ‘You don’t understand – we can only see one of your lungs. You need to go to the hospital – you could drop dead from something like this.’”

By the time things began to sink in, Phil was being admitted to Christiana Hospital for drainage of a massive pleural effusion, and a complete work-up. It wasn’t long until he had a preliminary diagnosis: malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Phil’s occupational history was positive for asbestos exposure. He repaired and maintained the heavy equipment used in manufacturing and power production, machinery that was often insulated with asbestos. “The stuff was all around us – we used to knock it off pipes with a hammer and toss it aside,” he says. ”No one told us otherwise. It wasn’t until the 90’s that we learned what it was, and that it could be harmful.

That’s when we started taking precautions about handling and breathing it.” Unfortunately, Phil was to find out that the precautions were too little too late to spare him from developing mesothelioma. Phil’s wife and parents drove up from West Virginia to transport Phil home for further medical evaluation. The doctors at Christiana had offered little hope, stating that they had found “inoperable cancer” of the left lung. They advised Sarah Lake to take her husband home and “get his affairs in order.”

When Phil returned to West Virginia, he was determined to fight on. He met with oncologist James Frame and pulmonologist Robert Crisalli at Charleston Area Medical Center, who confirmed the mesothelioma diagnosis utilizing Video Assisted Thoracoscopy. Dr.Crisalli, recognizing the need for expert intervention, researched the latest findings and referred Phil to Dr. Harvey Pass at Detroit Medical Center. Within two weeks of his clinic visit in Delaware, Phil was in the operating room in Detroit, undergoing Extrapleural Pneumonectomy (EPP) with Dr. Pass. During the surgery, Dr. Pass removed Phil’s left lung, a portion of his diaphragm and pericardium, and the left pleural membranes. Phil did well following his EPP, spending about a week in the hospital recovering. Dr. Pass, impressed with the care Phil had received at home, transferred him back to Charleston Medical Center for follow-up care. Phil had to be admitted briefly for drainage of fluid that had accumulated after his EPP, then received outpatient chemotherapy consisting of Cisplatin and Gemzar. For the next three years, Phil was symptom free.

In 2003, his mesothelioma recurred. By this time, Alimta had just won FDA approval to be used on a compassionate-use basis only. Realizing that this new chemotherapy offered his patient the best option for continued survival, Dr. Frame applied for FDA permission to use it for Phil. Phil had Alimta in combination with Cisplatin, and again, saw his mesothelioma halted. But Phil and his family had no time to rest and enjoy their victory. Within the year, Phil’s old enemy, renal cancer, had recurred in his remaining kidney, and he was off to Cleveland Clinic to do battle with yet another form of cancer.

For the next two years, Phil was busy fighting the renal cancer that had spread from his left kidney to his right hip. He was treated with radiation and chemotherapy, and then required surgical replacement of both hips due to complications from the renal cancer and its treatment. He had barely recovered from this latest surgery, when in mid-2006, his mesothelioma recurred in the left side of his chest. The tumor appeared to be localized. Therefore, Phil and his medical team decided to treat it with Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT), a newly developed method of applying radiation very precisely. Fortunately, this was successful, and once again, the mesothelioma was halted.

Despite all he has endured, Phil Lake considers himself blessed for a number of reasons: he was diagnosed rapidly, and received expert care; he has lived eight years with a disease that usually carries a prognosis of less than two years; and thanks to the evolving improvements in meso treatment, he has won multiple battles and been able to spend quality time with his wife and daughter, watching his little girl blossom into young adulthood.

Phil’s goals are twofold. First, he’d like to see his daughter off to college. Second, he wants to see the mining, production, and use of asbestos halted, everywhere. Phil understands why asbestos was once used so extensively. “It was the perfect product for the jobs we wanted it to do,” he acknowledges. “But now that we know there is no safe threshold – that even a little exposure to asbestos can cause massive suffering - it makes no sense to continue using something that causes this much harm.” Phil shakes his head in amazement when he recalls a recent event: he was helping his daughter’s high school renovate a locker room for the girls’ softball team, and was astonished to see that asbestos that had been removed from the school was sitting outside in an open dumpster with only a small warning sign attached to it. “That’s foolhardy,” he says, “People need to understand that anyone can get this disease. We are just beginning to reap the results of the fact that the stuff is everywhere. And I don’t want another person to go through what we’ve been through as a family.”

Phil speaks up against asbestos use whenever he can, and feels strongly that those who knowingly covered up the dangers of asbestos and placed workers and families at risk should correct the damage they have done. He and Sarah attended the Foundation’s recent Symposium in Washington DC in order to participate in advocacy efforts to ban asbestos and obtain federal funding for mesothelioma research. He also reaches out to mesothelioma victims to provide hope and inspiration, as well as some hard-won advice. “Mesothelioma is an individual disease,” he states. “Every case is unique, just as every individual is, and my personal experience is not an exact blueprint for others to follow step by step.” What Phil believes is crucial to survival is to “educate yourself about the disease, and find physicians you can work with, not as a passive victim, but as a collaborator in your own healing.”

Phil also says that “This disease is all about hope, and not regrets.” While it might be human nature to rue past actions, they cannot be undone – it is the future that counts. Right now, Phil requires no treatment, but he is aware that there may come a time when one or both of his cancers become active again. He’ll face that challenge when the time comes, but for now, he is content to have survived for one more day. And he’ll live each day he is given to the fullest, spending time with his family, and building memories to last a lifetime.