Patient Stories

Enjoy Lillie Shockney’s sense of humor as you read her personal story of how working as a nurse and facing her own breast cancer diagnosis shaped her life and her lifelong work as a breast cancer educator and advocate.

When the emergency department (better known as ER) doctor and the clinical nurse specialist came in and asked, “Is there anyone with you?” I knew what was to follow wasn’t good. Like many other women, had made excuses for the discomfort, bloating, and weight gain I was experiencing in October 2016, thinking it was just something I had eaten, or maybe my metabolism, menopause, or inactivity.

Rebecca Blomgren felt betrayed and angry when the “bump” she had told her dentists about for years was dismissed as nothing but was finally diagnosed as advanced oral cancer. This experience has taught her to accept her fears and anxieties without apology.

As a psychologist dedicated to helping people cope with disasters, Jamie D. Aten knew the damage “survivor’s guilt” can do. As a stage IV colon cancer survivor, he says, “I wasn’t prepared for it to hit me personally.”

For Erika Brooks, it took some time to adjust to what it means to have an incurable cancer. She says, “at first, I kept thinking it was a death sentence.” Eventually, she came to see her cancer in a different light.

Brigid Wallace contemplates the choices she made when living in the “new normal” after her cancer diagnosis. She describes the struggles and personal victories that tested her faith and strength after she learned she had non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Dennis Golden was an active, fit, 70-year-old when he learned he had prostate cancer. He was surprised to discover that few men know the warning signs and how potentially serious it can be. In response, he formed the National Prostate Cancer Awareness Foundation to educate men about this disease.