Cancer cannot stop a woman from her dream

By Kay Quinn, Healthbeat Reporter

KSDK -- Most young girls dream of having a baby. But sometimes illness or other circumstances get in the way. For one lucky St. Charles woman, her bout with cancer did not keep her from having her dream come true.

34-year-old Jennifer Hohlt was diagnosed with kidney cancer when she was just a kindergartener; when pediatric cancer treatment was in its infancy.

Jeanne Harvey, a nurse practitioner at St. Louis Children's Hospital, remembers the old days of cancer treatment.

"Back in '79 when she was treated the goal was to throw whatever we had at it to get rid of it and not worry about what happened down the road," she said.

Jennifer recalls losing her hair and having the treatments make her sick.

"There was a little girl who I was friends with who had leukemia. She passed away when I was in first grade," Hohlt said. "That kind of changes you, you know. You see things a little bit differently."

That's part of what makes her story so sweet. She wanted a family but wondered if her cancer treatments had left her infertile. She and her husband Brian researched her childhood medical records. Their search led them to the late effects cancer clinic at Children's. The side effects: pediatric cancer patients' experiences were documented.

Jennifer, Brian and the doctors knew it could be challenging to get pregnant. But it was not impossible.

Joey Hohlt is now four-months-old. His mother believes his birth was made possible by Harvey's careful research into her childhood cancer. Brian remembers the pregnancy as a stressful, fearful time. There were a few issues along the way but eventually doctors performed a c-section. Joey was born six weeks early.

"When it finally came to that time and he finally came out and he screamed for the first time, I think all of us, and she was okay, that relief was probably the biggest thing," Brian said.

The Hohlts are excited not only to have Joey but to know Jennifer's journey may help others in the future.