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A 67-year-old cancer survivor from Orange County, Florida, completed a more than 2,000-mile journey down the Missouri River alongside his dog, Amos, after undergoing a groundbreaking immunotherapy treatment.
Frank Carter spent 64 days navigating the longest U.S. river in a cedar-strip canoe he built by hand, according to reports from the Moffitt Cancer Center and FOX 13 News.
The expedition began in Montana and concluded near St. Louis, Missouri, requiring the pair to camp along the riverbank while enduring severe storms, high winds and hail, FOX 13 News reported.
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Before his diagnosis, Carter was a long-distance adventurer. According to the Moffitt Cancer Center, he spent five months hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2019 and completed an eight-week cross-country bicycle ride from San Diego to New Smyrna Beach, Florida, in 2020.
However, his physical limits were tested in a new way in 2021 following a routine 5K race.
“I was wiped out. I just wasn’t recovering,” Carter told FOX 13 News. “I went to my doctor, had blood tests. Long story short, in two weeks I was getting chemo.”
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Doctors diagnosed Carter with mantle cell lymphoma, a rare form of blood cancer that originates in white blood cells known as lymphocytes. He underwent 15 rounds of chemotherapy in Orlando, according to Moffitt Cancer Center.
Although the treatment significantly reduced the cancer, follow-up exams showed lingering traces of the disease.
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Carter then sought care at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa to undergo chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, which involves extracting the patient’s own immune cells, genetically altering them in a laboratory to identify cancer cells, and adding them back into the body.
“We take those T-cells and genetically engineer them by putting something called a CAR into them,” Dr. Michael Jain, an oncologist at Moffitt Cancer Center, told FOX 13 News. “Now these T-cells can see the tumor and get rid of it, where before the tumor was able to hide from it.”
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Carter has remained cancer-free for four years following the single infusion. Throughout his recovery, he has found constant support in his dog, Amos, whom he brought home right before beginning chemotherapy.
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“After my cancer diagnosis, I told myself I was going to beat this, and I really wanted a dog during the process,” Carter told Moffitt’s Endeavor publication. “I got Amos right before my first treatment.”