Perry Davis Jr. was on the 18th hole on a gorgeous day early this summer. He failed to par the hole, but he is upbeat nonetheless. A Fort Mill resident with fond memories of Charleston, he tends to be in a good mood all the time, in part because of his nature but mostly because he knows that against the odds, he blasted his way out of a tough lie in an impossible bunker – he had only a 10% chance to live.
In fall 2021, when a dentist pulled one of Davis’ teeth, it came out in five pieces, which didn’t sit well with the dentist or the patient. A few weeks later, Davis’ face started swelling at a rapid pace. His dentist confirmed that the swelling was not a result of the tooth extraction and encouraged him to see his primary care doctor – soon.
That doctor visit swiftly moved to a trip to, as Davis described, a “brainiac oncologist, Dr. Ryan Jacobs,” who told Davis and the love of his life for 16 years, Martha Foster, that he had a rare form of cancer and only a 1 in 10 chance to survive.
“I can’t do anything; this is a rare and swift cancer,” Davis, 64, remembered Dr. Jacobs saying.
And then Davis fainted.
“When I woke up, Martha was upset and telling the doctor, ‘he doesn’t faint,’” Davis recalled. “And I assured Dr. Jacobs that I still had a lot of stuff to do – I actually used a different “s” word – so I was going to make that 10% survival rate go up.”
Davis’ official diagnosis was large B cell lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and Richter’s syndrome, he explained.
“Richter’s syndrome is an aggressive histologic transformation of chronic lymphocytic leukemia,” according to verywell health. “Outcomes are generally poor, with complete remission rates of only about 20% and less than 20% long-term survival with chemoimmunotherapy.”
At first, treatments were traditional – a barrage of chemo, hair loss, back and forth trips to the Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Chemo screws up your body, and it wasn’t working,” Davis explained. “It just made me weak. I lost 30 pounds because I had zero appetite.”
To keep his weight up, Davis drank protein shakes for six months straight.
“Protein shakes, no solid food, unless you count occasional scoops of Breyers vanilla ice cream,” Davis joked. “My weight went back up, but the tumor would go up and down. It was maddening.”
Davis and Foster worked well as a team to fight his cancer. Davis watched a lot of westerns while stuck on the couch.
“Guys spend a lot of time in Western saloons,” he said. “I wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol, but Martha understood one of my guilty pleasures – a Dixie cup of wine. When the guys were in the saloon, I could toss one back with them.”
Davis and Foster remain thankful to their employers. The real estate law practice FrickTrentLizzio, moved her computers and files to their home, while Davis’ business partner, Al Tuggle with Re-Strap, continued to pay him when he couldn’t work.
In his scariest moments, Davis said he was mad and angry. He was someone who never got sick.
“I’ve always been healthy,” he said.
With a little prodding, he let on that he played five sports in high school; he was an avid runner who participated in the Cooper River Bridge Run. In college, he rode a unicycle to class.
Davis noted the irony of the fact that when he was fit and in his 30s, he ran marathons for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society and raised $12,000.
“The first marathon was in Hawaii,” he recalled. “It was wonderful. It started in Honolulu at 5 a.m. and I was done by 8:30 a.m. While running around Diamond Head, I stopped to look up at the clouds; they looked like angels.”
Even in his darkest moments – like the day the learned that chemo was not working or when he was too weak to do things that were once part of his daily routine – Davis never thought he was going to die. He credits that sense of peace to his faith, the prayers and the support of others and the care he received from his medical team.
It was Dr. Jacobs who told Davis about the Hail Mary treatment that ultimately saved his life: chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy.
“It was new, there were no guarantees and it is very expensive,” Davis explained. “It’s tough to get insurance to cover it, but Dr. Jacobs called every day and got it approved.”
CAR T-cell therapy is a way to get a type of white blood cell to fight cancer by changing them in the lab so they can find and destroy cancer cells, according to the American Cancer Society. CAR T-cell therapy is sometimes considered to be a type of cell-based gene therapy, because it involves altering the genes inside T cells to help them attack the cancer.
“Think Pac Man in my whole body,” he once told a friend.
“Basically, they take your blood cells out and re-engineer them so that they fight the cancer,” Davis said. “The doctors told me that it was dangerous. Some people lose the ability to speak.”
There was temporary panic when Davis spiked a 105-degree fever for two days.
“I’m done,” he thought.
But he was far from finished. Sooner than expected, he walked then ran on a treadmill. His heart rate was fine, and he got to go home.
CAR T saved my life,” Davis said. “I’ve had three PET scans and I’m cancer free. I know that I’m a walking miracle.”
He can’t wait to give back to everything and everyone who saved him. His doctors assure him that he will know what to do and when to give, but they asked him to wait a little longer before paying it forward for others.
“Maybe I’ll run another marathon,” Davis quipped. “I’m getting stronger every day; I’m about 85% to 90% back.”
Meanwhile, with a renewed zest for life, he is soaking up all things positive, golf among them. He purposefully plays with “kids” 20 years younger than he is.
“They keep me young,” he said. “And once you have almost died, you want to take in everything.”
By Lisa Moody Breslin
