Fundraiser, Marilyn Monroe Impersonator, Snow Queen: Breast Cancer Patient Does It All 

While planning her annual breast cancer fundraiser in Hull, Mass., Ellie Destito’s friends learned some surprising news. For the first time, their friend revealed that she was living with breast cancer herself.  “They had no idea,” recalls Destito, who was first diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2008. Through the years, she was treated with … Read more

From Staff Member to Empowered Patient: A Journey with Lynch Syndrome 

In March 2016, two months before joining Dana-Farber, Sara Menendez, LAT, ATC, attended LYNKED IN, an annual one-day conference hosted by Dana-Farber’s Lynch Syndrome Center. The event gave her an opportunity to meet colleagues and learn about treatment advances, screening guidelines, and prevention efforts for Lynch syndrome, an inherited and often underdiagnosed condition that increases … Read more

Breast Cancer Survivor Provides Textured Wig Options to Women of Color 

In the midst of a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation for ​​breast cancer, Dianne Austin thought finding a wig to cover her balding head would be easy. She quickly learned otherwise.  As a Black woman, Austin desired a wig that resembled her tightly coiled, kinky and curly hair. This was 2015, and although several hospitals near … Read more

Artist Explores the Renewal and Healing of Stem Cell Transplants 

In 2023, Denise “Necee” Regis was brought face to face with her old art studio building on Brookline Avenue. As she walked by, she was able to identify the window that belonged to the room where she once spent the late 70s and early 80s working on a Master of Fine Arts at the Massachusetts … Read more

Grandmother Continues Life of Adventure on Endometrial Cancer Clinical Trial  

Roberta “Bert” Green is a woman with a full and busy life. When not driving across the country with her husband, Ralph, in their RV, she alternates between paddle boarding, walking, e-biking, and skiing with the changing seasons around her rural Vermont home. Retired after a long career as a school neuropsychologist, she also makes … Read more

State Rep Stays Committed to Constituents During Pancreatic Cancer Treatment 

Ann-Margaret Ferrante likes a good fight. The daughter and granddaughter of Gloucester, Mass. fishermen has long devoted herself to helping those in and around her hardy hometown, first as a lawyer, and since 2009 as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.   For the last three years, however, Ferrante has had to balance her … Read more

Breast Cancer and Young People of Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Descent: What You Need to Know 

Between 2000 and 2021, breast cancer rates in people under 50 of Asian or Pacific Islander decent rose by nearly 50%, from 36 to 55 cases per 100,000, with sharper increases between 2020 and 2021. Rates of breast cancer in young people are known to be rising in general, but this rate increase, according to … Read more

For Neurodiverse Patient, New Program Provides Comfort, Allies 

Naomi Dogan, PhD, still remembers a visit to the hospital earlier this year for blood work, after joining a clinical trial for patients incurring symptoms related to polycythemia vera — one of a group of rare blood disorders known as myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs).   In a far corner of the large room a machine quietly hummed … Read more