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
In December 2023, a space opened in a clinical trial at Dana-Farber of a novel targeted drug. Rosemary Conway, 68, who had stage IV lung cancer, was eager to fill it. She had been waiting nearly six years for a trial of a medicine that would target a specific genetic mutation driving the growth of … Read more
The Scragg family always knew it was a possibility, but it still came as a shock. It was August 2021, and Mark Scragg, then 33, was undergoing treatment for stage 4 stomach cancer. After just three months of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, scans showed no sign of the tumor first discovered in his stomach that spring … Read more
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
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
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
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
Andrew Ciardelli’s annual brothers’ hunting trip in Idaho took a turn for the worse when the stomach issues he had lived with for years suddenly became unbearable. Years before the trip, a urologist told Ciardelli that the cause of his pain and the blood in his stool was hemorrhoids. “They told me as long as … Read more
When Michael Koran, 83, came to Dana-Farber for a recurrence of sinus cancer, he received unwelcome news — the cancer was no longer treatable. The focus of Koran’s care then shifted to managing his symptoms and finding ways to cope with the emotions he was experiencing. Koran’s care team offered him expressive arts therapy. “They … Read more
Scott Menta describes himself as someone who “likes to stay on top of my health.” So, when he read about a new test that screens for cancer based on tumor cell DNA within the blood, he sprang for the cost of two tests — one for him and one for his wife. His wife’s test … Read more
Andrew Combes was early for his first appointment at Dana-Farber. He had traveled all the way from Tiny, Ontario, in Canada, and was eager to be seen to get a second opinion on his diagnosis of Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive cancer. To pass the time on this beautiful mid-October day, he meandered … Read more
Kathy Giusti was driving in rush hour traffic one January day in 1996 when her doctor called and requested they meet the next morning about her recent blood tests. Alarmed, Giusti insisted on more details, and the doctor eventually shared his concerns that she may have multiple myeloma. Giusti’s response to this news was quick … Read more
Jim Omel, MD, helped many cancer patients during his long career as a family physician, and that has not changed since his own 1997 diagnosis with multiple myeloma. What has changed is the reach of his support. While Omel, 77, cared for primarily farming families near his Nebraska clinic during 25-plus years in practice, his … Read more
Andrea Baxter remembers talking with girlfriends prior to her first mammogram in February 2023, just four months after her 40th birthday. “We joked about how these routine scans were a sign of getting older,” she recalls. “Nobody thought anything bad would come from them.” From working in the insurance field, Baxter knew that mammograms — … Read more
When Shirley Joseph met her future husband, Mike Joseph, on the set of one of her music videos in 2021, she had already proven herself as a tenacious entrepreneur. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the music industry to a halt a year prior and ended talks between Shirley and a major record label, she turned … Read more
As she hopped off the bleachers onto the grass after a graduation ceremony, Elizabeth Zarrella felt an unfamiliar pain in her back. A visit to the emergency room a week later revealed the source of the pain and the reason for its severity: her vertebrae were so brittle that two of them had been compressed … Read more
The first time Jay Reese was diagnosed with colon cancer, he didn’t tell his preschool-aged children. After it came back decades later, he told them immediately — and then suggested they take action. Jay underwent genetic testing after his 2012 colon cancer recurrence which revealed he had Lynch syndrome, an inherited genetic condition which carries … Read more
In Zhejiang Province, China, Yijia Wang headed to his local physician to find out the source of a lower back pain that had bothered him for weeks. Results from a biopsy took several weeks, eventually revealing a diagnosis of collecting duct carcinoma, a rare cancer in the kidney. Wang’s first round of treatment with a … Read more
In Catherine Argyrople’s “Growing Pains,” a scene set on a sunny day at a high school pool party becomes a way to explore how pediatric cancer can affect teenagers in survivorship. The protagonist, a curly-haired highschooler named Zoe wears a bikini for the first time in her life, revealing a scar on her stomach. A … Read more
Patricia Smith’s experience with cancer will stay with her for the rest of her life. “Walking through deep waters changes you,” she says. “You’re still the same person, but you’re different.” In 2009, Smith was diagnosed with B-cell diffuse lymphoma after she experienced weeks of fatigue and found a lump under her right arm. She … Read more