“I didn’t have time to sit back, and luckily I didn’t have to. This da Vinci System — what a blessing that it is in our community and that we have the expertise of physicians like Dr. Lim to operate it.”
Pam Quilici
Diagnosis: Ovarian Cancer
Treatment: da Vinci Surgery in April 2009
Pam Quilici
When Pam Quilici was told she had ovarian cancer, her first question did not pertain to the disease, course of treatment or survival rates.
Instead, she had one question for Peter Lim, MD, FACOG.
“I asked him when I could start walking again, because I had committed to a 40-mile cancer walk only a few months after surgery,” she laughed. “My husband was very concerned about the cancer, obviously. But I only wanted to know when I could walk again, when I could start working out.”
The 62-year-old Carson City resident was not discouraged by the diagnosis; after all, she had raised nearly $4,000 for the two-day Avon Breast Cancer Walk in San Francisco, and she was determined to meet her obligation.
And meet it she did, with the assistance of a very special technology: physician-guided robotic surgery using the da Vinci® Surgical System.
“I was so focused on recovery,” she said. “There was really no other choice. I was going to beat this, and beat it quickly.”
“I’m living testimony to this procedure,” Quilici said. “I had a mission after my surgery: a 40-mile walk within two months.”
She said she began just a few days later with a trip to the mailbox.
“Five and a half weeks later, I walked my 40 miles,” she said. “Because of the nature of the incision — because there were no stitches and big scars and all that scary stuff that goes with typical surgery — I could function and move normally very quickly.”
Of course, Quilici had more than just the walk as motivation: a golden retriever named Chloe, a German shorthair named Ely, four grandchildren age three and younger, and husband Jim Soumbeniotis drove her toward her personal finish line as well.
“I didn’t have time to sit back, and luckily I didn’t have to,” she said. “This da Vinci System — what a blessing that it is in our community and that we have the expertise of physicians like Dr. Lim to operate it.”
*Excerpt from “Walking the Walk” by Mikalee Byerman in Volume 2 Issue 2 of Renown Journey. Read the entire story.