I had the day off from work and was busy putting together a special anniversary dinner for my husband. In the midst of chopping vegetables, I heard my cell phone ring but couldn’t reach it in time. I’d missed a call from my dermatologist.
In 1998 at age 24, I worked for a Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives, and I had plans for law school. But, the unexpected happened when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Waiting to turn 21 as a member of the millennial generation is a rite of passage with a whole slew of traditions. For me, it was drinking a margarita at midnight on a Tuesday while doing advertising homework, enjoying a birthday cake with a drunk look-alike Barbie doll adorned by liquor shots and finally using those alcoholic emojis on Facebook without fear of legal repercussion.
If you are considering starting a clinical trial, either because your doctor recommended it or because you or an advocate found a trial that seems appropriate, I have this easy advice: “GO FOR IT!” What have you got to lose? Trials are safe, well researched and documented. You, as a patient, are monitored and cared for like you never thought possible. You have so much to gain!
Having such a simple question asked a certain way can really humanize you during a time when normalcy seems like the distant past. I was still Mary. I still had the same parents, same car and same clothes. Why should being a little extra sick make a difference?
Sharon McCann never smoked. Neither did her parents or her husband. She did not have any of the risk factors for lung cancer. “It just happened,” she says.
Richard Satterwhite doesn’t have any trouble remembering dates. Among those that will stay with him: Sept. 6, Oct. 24 and Dec. 14. These are the dates that Richard associates with milestones in his experience with prostate cancer.
Annette Hill got wonderful news in early May of 2014 when she learned she was pregnant. But toward the end of the month, after discovering a lump in her breast and pointing it out to her doctor, she got hit with a very different kind of news: she also had stage III breast cancer.