Who is Robin Rumple?

She is a wife to a loving husband, a mother of four fantastic kids, a little sister to three amazing women and a friend to everyone she meets.

She grew up in the little town of Hicksville, Ohio. In 1996, she married the love of her life and her best friend, Jay Rumple. Their adventure together took them from that small town in Ohio to the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. In 2018, Robin and Jay packed up their family and headed south again to Fort Myers, Florida.

Robin currently works for Walmart as a Certified Pharmacy Technician and volunteers at Anthem Church as the manager of the Anthem Cafe. She also assists her husband in the media booth with the video production of the services.

When asked, she admits that the greatest joy of her life is her family. She is extremely proud of her husband, Jay, and her four children: Jonathan (24), Christopher (22), Katherine (17), and Benjamin (15). She regularly chats with her three sisters; Kris, Ann and Mary (ages withheld for obvious reasons). She also adores her church family, especially her crazy sisters in Christ, Heather and Kelley.

What is leiomyosarcoma?

Leiomyosarcoma, or LMS, is a type of rare cancer that grows in the smooth muscles. The smooth muscles are in the hollow organs of the body, including the intestines, stomach, bladder, and blood vessels. In females, there is also smooth muscle in the uterus. These smooth muscle tissues help move blood, food, and other material through the body and work without you being aware.

LMS is an aggressive cancer, which means it can grow quickly. LMS is found most often in the abdomen or in the uterus.

How common is LMS?

LMS is a type of soft tissue sarcoma and makes up between 10% to 20% of soft tissue sarcoma cases. LMS is more common in adults than children. It is estimated that only about 20 to 30 children are diagnosed with LMS in the United States per year. LMS of the uterus affects about 6 per 1 million people per year in the United States.

How is LMS diagnosed?

Symptoms depend on where the tumor is and how big it is. Some people with LMS do not have symptoms when the cancer first starts. Later, when the tumor gets larger, symptoms can include:

• • • • Pain
      • Unintentional weight loss
      • Nausea and vomiting
      • Lump under the skin

How is LMS treated?

Treatment for each patient will be unique and depends on the size and location of the tumor. You should go to an expert in LMS treatment to decide the best approach for treating your tumor. 

Surgery: The best option for LMS treatment is surgery. If all of the tumor is removed, there is a good chance of LMS being cured. If some cancer cells are left behind, there is a greater chance of the cancer coming back in the same spot, or a different part of the body.

Radiation therapy: Radiation therapy can be used around the time of surgery. The radiation is aimed at the tumor area to prevent it from growing back after it is removed.

Chemotherapy: When the LMS tumors are large, or the cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body, then chemotherapy is used in combination with surgery.

Does LMS run in families?

No. LMS without an underlying genetic condition is not known to run in families.

What is the prognosis for someone with LMS?

The estimate of how a disease will affect you in the long term is called prognosis. Every person is different, and prognosis will depend on many factors, such as:

• Where the tumor is in your body
• If the cancer has spread to other parts of your body
• How much of the tumor was taken out during surgery

When LMS is identified early and is removed by surgery, prognosis is good and full recovery is likely. When LMS is already large or has spread to other parts of the body, treatment is more difficult and the prognosis is not as good.

Robin has been blessed with a fantastic medical team. This group of specialists have taken great care of her so far during this process. We are so thankful for the teams at Florida Cancer Specialists and Moffitt Cancer Center.