Uncommon resilience: Teen overcomes leukemia and a rare lung infection

There are many words to describe 16-year-old Henry Honmyhr’s battle with leukemia. Extraordinary, unimaginable, rare.

Henry began experiencing bone pain in his arm during the spring and summer of 2023. Thinking it was a fracture or strain from baseball, he went through tests and visited an orthopedic doctor. No sports injuries were found, but an MRI scan detected something unusual.

It was leukemia, a type of blood cancer. Robin Williams, MD, a hematologist/oncologist with M Health Fairview Pediatrics and an assistant professor with University of Minnesota Medical Center, remembers the unconventional path to Henry’s diagnosis.

“We typically diagnose leukemia through blood labs, which Henry did have,” she said. “His labs didn’t indicate leukemia or anything else wrong. But when we looked at the MRI, there were signals that his bone marrow was not normal. It wasn’t a typical picture of leukemia. But that’s ultimately what it was.”

In September 2023, Henry started chemotherapy treatment for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Ahead of him was more than two and a half years of therapy. Though the days were hard, Henry’s treatment went well. Until a high fever led to a second diagnosis.

Fungal infection leads to lung surgery

Chemotherapy for cancer, while helpful for destroying cancer cells, also weakens the body’s ability to fight infections. In Henry’s case, that opened the door for a rare fungal infection called mucormycosis in his lungs. When Henry came to the hospital with a high fever, his care team worked closely with infectious disease specialists to identify the problem.

Because of the spread of the infection, Williams sought the expertise of Rafael Andrade, MD, an M Health Fairview thoracic surgeon and professor and chief of the division of thoracic and foregut surgery with the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Andrade, who typically sees adult patients, had treated this kind of infection in a child once before. He was prepared to do it again for Henry. Henry was quickly transferred to Andrade’s care at nearby M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center – East Bank.

“I can’t imagine what it would have looked like if we were at any other hospital,” said Amy, Henry’s mom. “As a parent dealing with all this, they just made it so much easier.”

At the medical center, Andrade prepared Henry and his family for major surgery that would likely result in the removal of part or all of one of Henry’s lungs. Scans of Henry’s lungs showed extensive damage, but Andrade would make the final decision during surgery, when he could best see the impact of the infection. Ultimately, on July 1, 2024, Andrade removed Henry’s entire left lung.

“It was a pretty black-and-white decision in the end,” Andrade said. “If we didn’t do this, he would die. We needed to give him this chance.” Along with the surgery, Henry was on several antifungal medications, including a new antifungal drug called fosmanogepix, to help fight the infection.

“We had to have some very hard conversations with Henry during those weeks following his surgery,” his mom said, tearfully. “He was so sick.”