Category Cancer Patient Stories

Finding hope for pediatric patients—on a bike or on foot

May 17, 2022

In 2016, Stella Hope Freedman was born with lesions on her forehead, which, just two short months into her life, began to spread throughout her body. After seeing multiple doctors and a pediatric dermatologist, Stella was referred to Dana-Farber Cancer…

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Honoring a brother’s legacy through the Jimmy Fund Walk

May 5, 2022

In Celebration of Mother’s Day, Jimmy Fund Walk participant Laura Zaks shares the story of her brother Todd Schwartz and how she keeps his memory alive, especially for her three children, who will never get to meet their uncle. My…

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Young baseball player’s team helps him strike out cancer

May 4, 2022

Evan Leo, now 12, has been playing baseball since he was 5. In 2019, he joined a year-round traveling baseball team based in Tewksbury, Mass., where he played second base and outfield, and loved running around and making plays with…

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Defying brain cancer is a family effort

May 2, 2022

Ever get a song stuck in your head that you can’t get out? What about multiple songs, looping over each other and mixing in and out, constantly in the background? That’s what Nolan Hsu, an active, otherwise healthy 30-year-old, started…

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Family honoring wife and mother by raising funds for rare cancer

April 22, 2022

Wendy Ramsey, an active 47-year-old, started experiencing a severe decline in her energy levels in 2003. She decided to seek medical attention when her husband, Duane, and sons, Spencer and Stewart, agreed that it was unlike her to be unable…

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Walking against colon cancer: Joe’s story

March 11, 2022

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. To help spread awareness for young-onset colon cancer, we asked Joe Opiela to share his family’s experience. This is their story, told from his perspective. My 29-year-old son Adam had an abnormal blood test…

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Young mom runs for Dana-Farber, inspired by her own cancer journey

March 4, 2022

May 2020 changed Erin Burke’s life forever. She was a 30-year-old woman in great health and eagerly awaiting the arrival of her first child in two short months. The news of her stage III, high-grade mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC), a rare…

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