Patient Stories (Page 18)

Each Monday this month, we’re looking at the UVA Cancer Center’s Integrative Medicine Program. How would you react if you found out the 4.5-centimeter lump on your breast was cancer?  What if you were just 31 years old, otherwise healthy and a busy student working towards a PhD? [caption id="attachment_2979"…

After running his first marathon in November 2010, Todd Smith was in the best shape of his life. At 49 years old, he felt great. So it came as a surprise in early 2011 when he started having frequent bouts of unexplained lightheadedness. [caption id="attachment_2530" align="alignright" width="300"] Heart rhythm patient…

About 10 years ago, Linda Moses of Bridgewater, Va., felt something “rip” inside her right knee as she slipped while docking her family’s sailboat off the coast of Charleston, S.C.

Shirley Caparn has been cancer-free since 1984. But she’s reminded of it every day, because she lost her right breast during the surgery that saved her life. So she’s become a fan of Flourish Boutique, UVA’s new boutique for cancer patients and survivors. Before Flourish opened, Caparn purchased bras for…

It’s not every day you get to meet a living legend. On the eve of November, National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, that’s what I got to do — talk to one of the very, very few people alive who has survived pancreatic cancer. She also happens to be Debbie Ryan,…

Leah Yetzer, 30, was 37 weeks pregnant with twin boys in 2009 when doctors discovered she’d developed HELLP syndrome, a rare but serious condition that occurs during pregnancy or just after delivery. HELLP reduces red blood cells and increases liver enzymes. Leah was airlifted to UVA, where she had a…

Sione Wade’s battle with stage I breast cancer was almost eight years ago and relatively brief. A last-minute appointment enabled her to get a lumpectomy the same week she was diagnosed. She’s been cancer-free ever since. [caption id="attachment_2158" align="alignright" width="300"] Sione Wade[/caption] But Wade’s never forgotten the phone call from…

[caption id="attachment_1467" align="alignright" width="300"] Luke and Mary Roberts[/caption] Everywhere Luke Roberts goes, his parents must worry about peanuts. If 7-year-old Luke eats peanuts, he could vomit, break out into hives or even stop breathing. Avoiding them isn’t as simple as passing up on Snickers bars. Many processed foods contain trace…

Sidestepping a Third Open-Heart Surgery “For the most part, I live the life of an average 24-year-old graduate student,” says Brandon Conroy. But like others born with congenital heart defects, he’s also in the hospital a lot. He has been through two open-heart surgeries: The first at age 5 to…

[caption id="attachment_868" align="alignright" width="199"] Gamma Knife surgery treated Kay Brockwell's brain tumor.[/caption] When Kay Brockwell of Altavista, Va., received the diagnoses of brain cancer last summer, her body had already been through the mill – twice. In 2006, she was operated on for ovarian and colon cancers, followed by weeks…