By Luisa Stigol, MD, FAAP I was a 74-year-old pediatrician in practice with a multi-specialty group associated with Boston Children’s Hospital. Forty years after becoming a doctor, I still loved learning new things and sharing them with my patients. Then I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer — and suddenly, a big wall separated me from … Continued
For most of his life, Jim Calhoun never paid attention to college football; his football fandom started and ended with the New York Giants. This year, however, he’ll be closely following the team at Tulane University — in particular, the offensive lineman who saved his life. In 2017, Calhoun, now 45, was diagnosed with acute … Continued
It was a bumpy road for Anne Sandstrom at first: after dealing with a stage IIIc ovarian cancer diagnosis, she had two relapses in a three-year span. But finally, treatment worked, and Sandstrom has enjoyed 16 years in which her disease lay dormant — enough for her oncologist to declare her “graduated” in 2017. The … Continued
Jen Mancuso’s analytical mind has served her well during her career as a biochemist and information technology expert. Thinking like a diagnostician has also allowed her to remain upbeat while facing the greatest challenge of her life: stage IV melanoma. A wife and mother of two pre-teen daughters, Mancusco, 41, says she appreciates the intricacies … Continued
Ingersoll “Sandy” Cunningham has the dignified, silver-haired appearance of a man you’d expect to find sipping tea with friends. So what is this Harvard-educated great-grandfather doing pushing food carts through the hallways of Dana-Farber, handing out sandwiches to patients? “You’ve got to have some objective when you get up in the morning, a purpose and … Continued
Kristina Johnson is a recent college graduate with a major in psychology who is working part-time while she looks for the right job. In her spare time, she likes spending time with friends and family and working out at the gym. Her life may sound like that of an average 25-year-old, but in one important … Continued
It began with some skin spots on his back and a lump on his knee that he thought was just a bruise from a golfing injury. After a series of exams and a biopsy, David Tracy, 74, of Waterford, Conn., finally learned he had a very rare and puzzling blood cancer that didn’t even have … Continued
Russ Horn went to work every day as a firefighter for almost 30 years. But now he has a new job—one that takes the same courage, hard work, and perseverance required in his last role. In 2014, Horn, then 50, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma—a cancer of plasma cells—after a minor slip at work sent … Continued
Kaitlyn Zonfrelli thought she was too young to have breast cancer, even though she showed a common sign of the disease. Now that she’s in treatment, she wants to spread the word: don’t ignore the signs, no matter what. Two years ago, when she was 26, Zonfrelli felt a lump on her breast during a … Continued
Charlie Benoit was told that he had a long road ahead of him when he was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2011. More than seven years later, he’s still doing well—and by studying patients like Benoit, researchers hope to help other patients with this incurable form of brain cancer. In 2011, Benoit, then 48, was getting … Continued
Krista Lawrence likes to joke with her two adult children that they don’t need to get married and have their own kids just because she has metastatic breast cancer. In fact, thanks to her excellent response to a clinical trial at the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers at Dana-Farber, Lawrence is enjoying each … Continued
As father and daughter, there are many things Dennis Gorden and Becky Nutley share: a contagious smile, the instinct to help others, and a commitment to family, to name a few. But one thing they never imagined they would have in common was a cancer diagnosis. In 2014, routine blood work revealed that Becky Nutley, … Continued
We featured the stories of many inspirational Dana-Farber patients in 2018. Here are eight that embody the word “hope.” In early 2018, CAR T-cell therapy put Sandra Linberg, a 75-year-old lymphoma patient, into complete remission. Linberg had been previously treated for advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma with standard chemotherapy, but the cancer recurred. Now, after only a month … Continued
When Stacy Hanson was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in early 2017, she immediately assumed she had no viable treatment options. Now that she is living a full, active lifestyle with her incurable yet treatable disease, she wants others to know that they can, too. Hanson, 49, is on a clinical trial that she began … Continued
In the summer of 2018, Kelli O’Hara was diagnosed with breast cancer—a difficult diagnosis for her to grapple with, since she lost her own grandmother to breast cancer when she was a child. But because of advancements in cancer research, as well as the care she received at the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s … Continued
While immunotherapy has brought an impressive new option to several types of cancer, drugs that harness the immune system to fight cancer haven’t shown a significant benefit in treating breast cancer—until now. According to a new clinical trial report, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy achieved better … Continued
When Jessica Audette looks at her daughter, Samantha, and son, Jacob, she finds herself overwhelmed by feelings of love, pride, and joy. And there’s a reason she refers to them as her “miracle children”—Audette is a neuroblastoma survivor, and it wasn’t always clear that she would be able to have kids. In 1974, a pediatrician … Continued
A troublesome cough led Patty Reid on a nine-months-long medical odyssey that resulted in a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Just as the then-60-year-old was preparing for a stem cell transplant in late 2016, a new research discovery prompted her doctors to change the type of transplant Reid received—greatly lessening her risk for another cancer … Continued
There was a time when Georgette Hannoush couldn’t imagine a bright future. In a four-year span, the mother of four—including triplets—was diagnosed with two different types of cancer. But because of her team at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Hannoush has been in remission for more than three years—and she credits her faith and the people she … Continued
Of the many ways scientists are trying to harness the body’s immune system to fight cancer, here is one of the most innovative: an approach that involves implanting small, biodegradable, sponge-like disks under the skin to attract key immune cells in the bloodstream—and “train” them to dispatch front-line defender cells (T cells) on a cancer … Continued