Family Members

Mark DeLong’s son Peter was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a rare bone cancer, at age 14, and died when he was just 16. Mark uses advocacy to raise funds for cancer research in Peter’s memory.

When she was 34 with a 6-year-old daughter, Sara Olsher was told she had breast cancer. What followed was a year and a half of treatment and connecting with her daughter in unique ways.

Sara Olsher was diagnosed with breast cancer at 34 years old. Explaining her diagnosis to her 6-year-old daughter and parenting through her treatment proved to be difficult. To help families like hers, Sara founded Mighty + Bright, which provides resources for families going through hard times, and wrote and illustrated the children’s book, “Someone I Love Has Cancer.”

Kimberley Norris relates her experience as a bedside advocate for her husband, Rick, after his esophageal cancer diagnosis, introducing her discussion of the challenges of advocating for a hospitalized patient with cancer.

Speech-language pathologist Stacey Brill, MS, CCC-SLP, shares her journey by her mom’s side as she battled cancer, and the subsequent care and services she had provided to many patients with cancer, in her mom’s memory.

Sindhu Addepalli, who is starting her career as a doctor, tells the touching story of how her family dealt with her aunt’s cancer during the pandemic, and how this experience influences her practice of medicine.

Mark Ryan, RN, emphasizes the importance of communication between doctors and patients, using as an example the stressful time his wife Anabel had because of miscommunication related to the results of a CT scan.

Take time to acknowledge all the people who have been supporting you along your journey—there may be more than you think.

Douglas Herman describes the touching moments at his mom’s bedside before she succumbed to bone cancer, and his subsequent journey from distressing thoughts to 40 years of endurance before he received a diagnosis of stage IV prostate cancer.