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Patient Stories

Our best measure of success is the health of our patients. On this page, you'll find stories of inspiration and hope from some of our cancer survivors.

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Patient Story

Young Father Overcomes Stage IV Cancer with Immunotherapy

Austin Hill was diagnosed with an aggressive form of stage IV gastric cancer, he was immediately referred to a doctor at The University of Kansas Cancer Center.

Patient Stories, Immunotherapy, Stomach Gastric Cancer
Patient Story

Photographer Gives Back Through Art and Philanthropy

In 2016, avid photographer Ginny Curtin underwent knee replacement surgery. During a routine follow-up after a successful surgery, she casually mentioned a knot in her leg that she assumed was a pulled hamstring. But after an examination, the tone in the room quickly shifted. Her orthopedic surgeon suggested an immediate MRI and biopsy.
Patient Story

Giving Back After Double Cancer Diagnosis

In 1999, Susan Miller was living the life she’d always dreamed of, raising 2 little girls ages 2 and 3, with her loving husband, Steve. But after a routine self-check, she found a lump in her breast. That was the day everything changed. Scans showed...
Patient Story

Genetic Testing Helped Priscilla Brittine Defy Her DNA

When Priscilla Brittine’s mother went to the emergency room in 2001 for stomach pains, she was told it was acid reflux and sent home. Seven months later, she died from stomach cancer. In the years that followed, Priscilla watched as stomach cancer...

Cancer, Stomach Gastric Cancer, Breast Cancer
Patient Story

Second Opinion Cancer Diagnosis Saves Life of Chief of Police

In January 2019, after experiencing severe back pain for several months, Darren McLaughlin was at work when he was taken to a nearby emergency room. He was having trouble breathing and his pain was debilitating. Darren, who is chief of police in Merr...

Cancer, Immunotherapy, Immunotherapy, CAR T Cell Therapy
Patient Story

Treatment Far from Home Helps Woman Beat Leukemia

Margie Harper lives near New Orleans, Louisiana, but it was doctors at The University of Kansas Cancer Center in Kansas City who gave her a second chance at life. In 2018, Margie was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a form of blood canc...

Cancer, Blood Marrow Transplant
Patient Story

100th Proton Therapy Patient Extols Her Positive Treatment Experience

Posterior fossa ependymoma. Most people have never heard these words because they describe a rare type of brain tumor, affecting only about 13,000 people in America, most of them children. Stylee Gray certainly never expected to hear them. Yet in J...
Patient Story

Cancer Survivor Brings Awareness and Hope to Her Community

Yolanda Irvin is a woman on a mission. Using her personal experience as a testament to the lifesaving power of a cancer second opinion, Yolanda is determined to bring healthcare education, accessibility and hope to her Kansas City community. Yoland...

Patient Stories, Second Opinion
Patient Story

Nebraska Prostate Cancer Patient Travels to Kansas for Proton Treatment

When facing a cancer diagnosis, people seek the most innovative and effective treatments available. Sometimes that means traveling to distant medical facilities, adding the anxiety of being hundreds or thousands of miles from home to an already stres...

Patient Stories, Proton Therapy
Patient Story

Woman with Metastatic Breast Cancer Fights with Newest Therapy

Dawn Wheeler was an active 50-year-old going about her day when she received a text from her older sister. “She texted because she didn’t think she’d be able to get through a phone call, but she wanted to let me know she’d just been diagnosed with breast cancer

Patient Stories, Breast Cancer, Cancer
Patient Story

Breast Cancer Survivor Says Women Must Ask Questions, Advocate for Themselves

Angela Garrison was in the best shape of her life. And although she wasn’t worried, Angela always had regular recommended cancer screenings, including an annual mammogram, and got a clean bill of health. Despite going to the same imaging center for years and having not 1 but 2 mammograms earlier that year, Angela learned in November 2020 that she had stage lll breast cancer.

Patient Stories, Breast Cancer
Patient Story

For Lisa Webb, Life Goes on Even During Proton Therapy Treatments

Lisa Webb is praying that a pencil-thin beam of light will stop the stealthy tumor that is stealing her sight. In May, Lisa was among the first patients to receive proton treatment at The University of Kansas Cancer Center’s Proton Therapy Center. P...

Proton Therapy, Treatment
Patient Story

An Agent for Early Detection

Olathe resident and real estate agent Bev Huff was fighting breast cancer long before she was diagnosed in November 2020. In the years leading up to her diagnosis, both Bev’s mother and aunt battled the disease. She followed their cancer journeys clo...

Cancer, Breast Cancer
Patient Story

Multiple Myeloma Patient Treated with CAR T-cell Therapy

Bill Coppinger didn’t want to make history. He just wanted to play with his grandchildren. But becoming the world’s first person to receive Abecma®, a new treatment for multiple myeloma, makes Bill both historic and a happy grandfather. Diagnosed wi...

Patient Stories, , CAR T Cell Therapy, Immunotherapy
Patient Story

Ewing Sarcoma Patient Longs To Be a Kid

During the 2017 football season, Matthew Arndt told his mom about the problem. What was believed to be childhood growing pains soon turned into a diagnosis of Ewing sarcoma, a rare cancer that grows in the bones or soft tissue surrounding bones.

Childhood Cancer, Patient Stories

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