Pulse - July 2021 - 6

SCVMA PROFILE JIM BELL
" In the summer of 2014, I began
having abdominal pain. It
proved to be due to pancreatic
cancer. I had my first surgery in
September of 2014. "
At the South Pole
Norway in 1991 and was seeking help getting a license
to practice in this country. " She has cheerfully encouraged
me to go out there and get the expeditionary stuff
out of my system, " he said. They live in Pacific Palisades
and have two adult sons.
Paul, 22, is a civil engineer for Exxon in Texas and
Erik, 18, graduated from high school in 2020 and has
spent a gap year working at SpaceX in Texas. He will
begin mechanical and aereospace engineering studies at
Purdue this fall.
Dr. Anderson earned his DVM degree from Virginia
Tech in 1986. He came to California because he had
heard that there was a good jobs market for veterinarians.
" I thought I'd come out and give it a try for a year. I
haven't gotten around to leaving yet. "
He accepted an internship at California Animal Hospital
with Drs. Larry Lippincott and Stephen Ettinger.
That turned into a surgical residency. " I thought that was
a great opportunity. Halfway through the residency, Dr.
Lippincott offered me the opportunity to purchase the
surgical practice. About the same time through a series
of coincidences I came into ownership of the emergency
department as well and I decided to stay and make my
career here. "
Dr. Anderson's father worked for the U.S. Foreign
Agricultural Service so he spent most of his formative
years abroad: " From five to nine, I lived in Liberia and
from 10 to 15 I lived in Ecuador, " he said.
He loves reading history and that has inspired his
interest in visiting places such as the polar regions. " I
wanted to get first-hand experience with what these
famous historical figures - the explorers of a century ago
- had endured. "
But there has been another adventure - both profound,
personal and physically threatening - in his life.
" The other large formative [experience] of my recent
history has been pancreatic cancer, " he said. " In the summer
of 2014, I began having abdominal pain. It proved
to be due to pancreatic cancer. I had my first surgery in
September of 2014. Roughly two years later I had a second,
completely unrelated pancreatic cancer develop. My
doctors determined by genetic analysis that it was not a
metastasis from the first one and they did another partial
pancreatectomy in January of 2017. I also had an adverse
reaction to chemotherapy that year, which damaged my
lungs and put me on life support for a week.
" Roughly nine months later after radiation and a second
round of chemotherapy, sure enough another mass
6
JULY 2021
PULSE
Riding a 1909 Model T
developed. In February of 2018 I had the Whipple procedure.
Unfortunately, there were complications relating
to the blood supply to the liver during that surgery so
my liver necrosed and two weeks after the Whipple surgery
I had a liver transplant.
" In the summer of 2019 I had a scan of my chest
which showed that all my lymph nodes were enlarged.
The doctors did a minimally invasive biopsy but I had
major bleeding. So I had two open chest surgeries in
July, 2019, and was once again on life support for almost
two weeks, " Dr. Anderson said.
" Since then my health has been stable. Last year was
the first in seven years when I did not spend any time in
the hospital.
" I went on disability in 2018 at the time of my liver
transplant and retired because I developed. neuropathy
after chemotherapy. I had numbness in my fingertips
and feet. Numbness in your fingertips doesn't work very
well for a surgeon. I retired after it became apparent that
was going to persist.
" I can't complain. I'm glad to be alive. I've been
blessed. It's been an interesting road and it's been a time
of challenges. But I'm grateful for the incredible support
that my wife Lisa and my sons, Paul and Erik, provided
during this whole odyssey. In many ways it's been
tougher on them than it has been on me. It's a great
credit to Lisa that she has held our family together
through all of this.
" I would certainly agree that this fight with pancreatic
cancer was probably the biggest adventure I ever had. It
was the most arduous and, in many ways, the most illuminating.
It has shown me that what really matters is
family and the good that you do with your life. It's great
to be devoted to your profession but one also should be
devoted to the world at large. " P
Pulse - July 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pulse - July 2021
