Radiation: 614 Real Stories
614 stories match radiation. 511 of them mention surgery.
Stage III Colorectal Cancer: Kara’s Survivor Story
Kara Lionetta was caring for 2 young children when her youngest was only 5 months old and she learned that symptoms she had associated with pregnancy and postpartum recovery were actually Stage III rectal cancer. She had experienced extreme exhaustion…
Read this storyStage IV Colorectal Cancer: Claire’s Patient Story
Claire Firrell was 46 when abdominal pain led to a Stage III colorectal cancer diagnosis in November 2015. The cancer had spread to lymph nodes. Her first treatment included surgery to remove the tumor, part of her colon, and lymph nodes, followed by 12…
Read this storyStage II Invasive Ductal Carcinoma: Charlotte’s Survivor Story
Charlotte was preparing to retire to a quiet cabin in northwestern Minnesota when breast cancer interrupted the plan. About 2 weeks before her 2024 annual mammogram, she felt pain in her right breast. She had long had an inflamed duct on the left side, so at…
Read this storyColorectal Cancer: Shiva’s Survivor Story
Shiva Sharma was 40 and working as a family doctor when vague bowel changes and back pain finally led him to schedule a colonoscopy. He had recently moved countries with his wife and 3 children and initially blamed stress. The colonoscopy changed everything…
Read this storyStage IV Breast Cancer: Iris’s Patient Story
Iris Lopez-Mendez first faced breast cancer in 2010 after feeling a lump in her right breast. Mammogram and biopsy confirmed Stage IIA breast cancer, and she was treated with lumpectomy, radiation, and chemotherapy. For years afterward, she kept up with…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Lung Adenocarcinoma: Allison’s Patient Story
Allison was an active 45-year-old mother of 2 when back pain that seemed muscular turned into a much larger warning sign. A CT report mentioned possible metastatic lesions in her spine. More testing followed, including chest imaging, MRI, brain imaging, PET…
Read this storyBreast Cancer: Marissa’s Survivor Story
Marissa Coreno was 27 when she felt a breast lump in June 2021. She was young, healthy, living independently, and had no family history of breast cancer, so she did not expect the lump to be serious. Diagnostic imaging at Cleveland Clinic Fairview Hospital…
Read this storyStage IV Breast Cancer: Linda’s Patient Story
Linda Norman was approaching her 60th birthday in January 2019 when a routine mammogram found a small mass in her left breast. Biopsy confirmed breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy, then 10 radiation treatments over 2 weeks. Anastrozole caused extreme joint…
Read this storyStage IV Lung Cancer: Clara’s Patient Story
Clara was 24 when symptoms that seemed unrelated slowly pointed to something serious. Hip and back pain were first explained as an L5-S1 herniated disc from running, but the pain around that area later made more sense after doctors found cancer had spread to…
Read this storyColorectal Cancer: Kathy’s Survivor Story
Kathy Ball-Toncic had already survived the trauma of September 11 and rebuilt her career when cancer entered her life twice in close succession. In February 2023, on her 69th birthday, she was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), described as the…
Read this storyLung Cancer: Jenny’s Patient Story
Jenny’s story is remembered through her husband, Kyle, who describes her as a loving mother, partner, and advocate for lung cancer awareness. Her lung cancer stage, subtype, biomarker results, and specific drug names were not stated, but her care was intense…
Read this storyStage IV Colorectal Cancer: Devon’s Survivor Story
Devon was 30 when rectal cancer symptoms appeared quickly. She first noticed more frequent bathroom urges, then mucus instead of stool, pain, and very narrow stools. She did not have blood in her stool, but the symptoms kept worsening. A gastroenterologist…
Read this storyStage III Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Paula’s Survivor Story
Paula Jones was 43 when a routine mammogram in February 2010 found a small spot in her left breast that she could not feel and her doctor could not detect by exam. Because she had lost her mother to breast cancer at age 7, Paula had started screening in her…
Read this storyStage IV Small Cell Lung Cancer: Kristen’s Patient Story
Kristen was an active nurse in her 40s who loved tennis when shortness of breath and right-sided pain led to a small cell lung cancer diagnosis in January 2025. Because she had a long-standing heart condition and a pacemaker, she first wondered whether the…
Read this storyStage III Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Lynn’s Survivor Story
Lynn Leiro was 36 when back pain, fatigue and then a lump in her armpit led to a Stage IIIC triple-negative breast cancer diagnosis in 2022. Imaging showed five breast tumors and a swollen lymph node; a later CT scan found more cancerous lymph nodes in her…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Lung Cancer: Kathrin’s Patient Story
Kathrin was a fitness professional living in Munich when fatigue and foot pain began to interrupt an active life. At first, the foot pain seemed like a sports injury from yoga or exercise. Imaging of the left foot showed a tumor, and biopsy revealed that it…
Read this storyStage III HR-Positive Invasive Lobular Carcinoma: Courtney’s Patient Story
Courtney was 37 and pregnant with her 3rd child when she first found a lump in her left breast in February 2022. Ultrasound showed a 5 mm hypoechoic mass that was considered probably benign, and mammogram did not show it because of dense breast tissue. She…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Jenny’s Patient Story
Jenny Apple was a healthy nonsmoker, wife, and mother whose first major symptom was persistent pain on the left side of her ribs. During the COVID period, getting care was difficult, and the pain was initially dismissed as strain from lifting her young child…
Read this storyStage IV Breast Cancer: Queen’s Patient Story
Queen was 31 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer after growing up with a strong family history of the disease. Her mother and aunt had both faced breast cancer, so the diagnosis carried personal and family weight from the beginning. Queen’s story later…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Kathleen’s Patient Story
Kathleen McEvoy-Schufreider was first diagnosed in 2011 with early-stage HER2-positive, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. She joined a clinical trial and received 16 weeks of paclitaxel with trastuzumab. After surgery, she received 4 doses of AC…
Read this storyStage III Colorectal Cancer: James’s Survivor Story
James had years of rectal bleeding that was repeatedly treated as hemorrhoids before he pushed for a colonoscopy himself. He was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2003, later describing it as Stage IIIC/IV. At first, doctors did not know the full extent of…
Read this storyStage III HR-Positive Invasive Lobular Carcinoma: Tanya’s Patient Story
Tanya was 44 when she was diagnosed in 2016 with Stage IIIA invasive lobular carcinoma in her left breast. She had noticed a painful lump for about 1 year, but her first concern was dismissed because she had no family history and was told breast cancer was…
Read this storyStage II BRCA2 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma: Onjalai’s Survivor Story
Onjalai Brown was 36 when she felt pain behind one nipple and then a lump about the size of a ping-pong ball. Her family history made the fear especially real: on her mother’s side, eight women had breast cancer and four men had prostate cancer, likely…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Alisa’s Patient Story
Alisa Secaida was 35 when cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, chest tightness and shoulder pain were dismissed as asthma or long COVID. She paid for her own CT scan, which showed a mass in the upper left lung, and later biopsy confirmed Stage IVB non-small…
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