New Cancer Center Delivers Same Exceptional Care

Greg Bolin is a familiar face in Jefferson County. A Pine Bluff native, he was a Deputy with the Jefferson County Sherriff’s Office for 37 years, so he knows the community inside out. When Greg became seriously ill 25 years ago, he chose Jefferson Regional as his healthcare provider, and he made the same choice recently when he had a recurrence of the same condition.

In 1998, Greg was very sick when he came to the Jefferson Regional Emergency Department. He was subsequently diagnosed with the autoimmune disease Acute Hemolytic Anemia, which causes the body to destroy red blood cells. After almost a month in the ICU, Greg recovered beautifully and thought the issue was behind him. Then came September of 2022, when he found himself back in the ED.

“I started having shortness of breath and went to the Emergency Department, where they ran some tests. The doctors were researching the problem, but from the way they were talking, I realized they were describing the same issue I had in ’98, even though I was much sicker back then.” That’s when the ED staff reached out to Hematologist/Oncologist Brian Campbell, MD, of the Jefferson Regional Jones-Dunklin Cancer Center.

“It seemed like it was just a few minutes and Dr. Campbell was at my bedside,” Greg remembers. “I was admitted to the hospital and, as I understand it, he had them make me some ‘special blood’ for transfusions. I had several blood transfusions and Dr. Campbell started me on an infusion of a cancer drug, right there in the hospital. The shortness of breath went away pretty quickly, and I went home in four days.”

For the next month, Greg went to the Jones-Dunklin Cancer Center once a week for infusions, an experience he describes as ‘great,’ “They explained everything that was going to happen, what the side effects might be, and did everything they could to try and mitigate that. There were a lot of patients in worse shape than I was, and you could tell the staff cared about them and took care of them.”

Now Greg visits the cancer center every six months to have his hemoglobin checked and make sure everything is working like it should. And he doesn’t just tolerate those visits – Greg says he looks forward to them. “Everybody there is so nice and professional, everyone seems content and I look forward to seeing them. We pick up conversations where we left off six months ago! And it’s not just me; I’ve seen them do it with other people.”

An interesting side note: Greg’s mother was with him for much of his initial illness in 1998, and when she saw the volunteers working around the hospital, she said, ‘This is something I want to get involved with.’ Claudette Bolin then joined the Jefferson Regional Auxiliary, and spent many years volunteering her time at the hospital.

Today, Greg is feeling good and working lots of hours on a new business here in Pine Bluff. But if he needs additional healthcare treatment in the future, he has no doubts about where to turn. “I don’t know anywhere I could have gone that would have been any better. If I was anywhere else in the world and I needed this help, I would say ‘Get me on a plane and get me back to Jefferson Regional in Pine Bluff.”