Patient Stories
Patient StoriesTesticular Cancer
By Brian Sluga
Parsing through tough decades-old memories, Brian Sluga takes us through what it was like to be diagnosed with testicular cancer in his 20s and to end up on the other side as a survivor.
Patient StoriesKidney Cancer
By Mike Morris
By 2012, Mike Morris has completed a triathlon in all 50 states. In 2015, he hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro. Then, a CT scan showed that he had metastatic renal-cell carcinoma that spread to his brain.
Patient StoriesBreast Cancer
After a 20-year career as a biomedical breast cancer researcher, Dr. Dana Brantley-Sieders was diagnosed with breast cancer and discovered that her scientific expertise didn’t prepare her for the challenges she faced as a patient.
Patient StoriesBreast Cancer
By Sara Gilles
Sara Gilles, an athlete and physical therapist who completed several Ironman triathlons, was shocked by her breast cancer diagnosis in her early 50s. Her husband had to tell others about her diagnosis, because she was too traumatized to say “I have breast cancer.”
Patient StoriesBreast Cancer
By Ann Glover
Ann Glover found a lump on her chest in 2020, and learned the negative emotional impact a doctor can have on a patient by delivering news in an uncaring manner.
Patient StoriesBreast CancerFamily Members
Dr. Gwamna lost her younger sister to breast cancer and a friend to ovarian cancer that spread to her stomach, so when she discovered a lump on her breast she was frozen in fear.
Anal CancerPatient StoriesHPV Infection & Cancer
Susie Sanchez remained calm on the outside after receiving her anal cancer diagnosis, but inside she was terrified, dealing with radiation therapy plus chemotherapy. She is now on a mission to tell people about the benefits of the HPV vaccine, which prevents anal cancer but wasn’t available to her when she was growing up.
Patient StoriesBreast Cancer
After being diagnosed with advanced breast cancer at age 30, Elizabeth McSpadden was shocked by the lack of appropriate norms to address fertility and other relevant issues in young women with cancer.