Katie Ortman Doble
“All throughout my journey I felt hope with treatment, even if that treatment was experimental. I just kept thinking, ‘We tackle this, we keep fighting.’ And I say ‘we’ because I was not in it alone.”
When Katie Ortman Doble was first diagnosed with Stage IV ocular melanoma, her treatment seemed straightforward. “The tumor was contained in my eyeball, and I was told there was a less than 2% chance it would spread,” she explains. But a year and a half later, Katie was told that the cancer had spread to her liver. At age 32, she was given 16 months to live, the same week her boyfriend had been planning to propose.
Looking for options, Katie’s father asked her doctor about clinical trials and was told, in reference to expenses like travel and lodging, that it could be “very expensive.” “Thankfully, my dad is an internist, and he knew we needed to get a second opinion and we decided to continue exploring clinical trials anyways. I was terrified but trusted his guidance.” Katie says they were fortunate to be in a position that potential travel costs did not deter them: “My father knew that clinical trials gave a chance at more time, even if slight.” Katie now calls herself “the poster child of clinical trials,” having participated in a variety of them to treat her cancer throughout her 30’s while navigating her wedding and other personal milestones. In 2021, half of Katie’s liver was removed surgically and, in the time since, she has remained with no evidence of disease.
Through it all she held onto the memory of her mother, who died of pancreatic cancer when Katie was 15. “I never expected I’d follow in her footsteps, especially so young,” Katie says. “With my diagnosis, I learned to own the narrative and to keep looking for options. I learned the importance of building a team of experts and being the squeaky wheel, my own best advocate.”
Today, she is a patient advocate who speaks all over the country to share her story, spreading inspiration to patients and those working in the clinical trial field. “Without cancer research, I would not be here,” Katie says. “It advances medicine for everyone. It gives us hope.” The advice Katie gives to others going through a diagnosis is: “There’s no right or wrong way to fight cancer. Remember that it’s your time to be selfish and to set boundaries. No one can take away your hope. Find a doctor and a team who will let you have that, no matter the circumstances.”
Katie stands up to cancer for “my mom, for myself, for my peers with ocular melanoma, and for all the other cancer thrivers and survivors I’ve met in the last decade.”
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Stand Up To Cancer raises awareness and funds research to detect and treat cancers with the aspiration to cure all patients. Find out how you can get involved.
