As a 15-year-old, Cindy Chamberlain started sneaking packs of cigarettes from the cartons her parents kept atop the refrigerator, beginning what would become decades of smoking Marlboro Lights 100s, a habit that 40 years later grew into chronic pneumonia, dependence on oxygen, and a diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
“I wanted to be cool, like all the other kids smoking,” Cindy recalled, but eventually, decades later, she was scared straight. “I was becoming like my mom. I was going to die not being able to breathe.”
Her mother also had COPD, yet she continued smoking even while on oxygen. She eventually died of lung cancer. Cindy could see herself going down the same road. So, at age 54, the long-time Las Vegas beautician quit cigarettes. Still, she would suffer the aftereffects of smoking for the next decade, even winding up in the hospital two years ago with a severe lung infection.
It didn’t help that she lived in the dusty northwest Arizona outpost of Dolan Springs, just off U.S. 93, the highway between Kingman and Las Vegas, at a junction leading to the western rim of the Grand Canyon.
Encouraged to seek out HonorHealth
Following an online invitation, Cindy found her way in April 2023 to HonorHealth Research Institute where she was enrolled in a clinical trial. The Nuvaira Lung Denervation System used in the clinical trial is a specialized device through a catheter and bronchoscope to conduct a full ablation of the main bronchi of each lung. The ablation permanently disrupts the pulmonary nerve to reduce neural hyperactivity, also known as “lung attacks,” which are the defining symptoms of COPD.
But because this was a randomized clinical trial, none of the participants were immediately told whether they actually got the procedure, or not.
Before undergoing anesthesia, Cindy met with Dr. Richard Sue, a pulmonologist specializing in obstructive lung disease in the research institute’s Multispecialty Research Division.
“Dr. Sue put his hand on mine and said, ‘You’re going to be alright. Everything’s going to be fine.’ That felt very comforting to me,” said Cindy, who later believed that she was among those who received treatment.
“A week later, I knew I got the procedure because I could breathe,” she said. “I could tell that I was breathing so differently. I didn’t use oxygen anymore, because I didn’t need it.”
Now, at age 64, she feels healthy, looking out from her desert home to the mountains in the east and the sunsets in the west.
“I feel very, very blessed that I got to do this,” Cindy said. “It’s amazing. I’m so appreciative of everything that they (at HonorHealth Research Institute) did for me.”
According to Dr. Sue: “We believe providing cutting edge care with opportunities to participate in high quality studies will give our patients options that they would not have access to elsewhere.”
