From Chickens and Ice Cream to Clinical Trials
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
Release Date: 09/19/2023
Life is a Reason to Celebrate
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
When Molly Hones was diagnosed with fibrolamellar cancer for the second time in less than two years, she made two critical decisions. First: She wouldn’t focus on the unknowns of her condition and would focus on the positives instead. Second, she would give back by participating in research. And so, in June 2023, Molly traveled to the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where oncologist and Conquer Cancer grant recipient Marina Baretti, MD, was running a clinical trial for people with fibrolamellar cancer. “I like to say I’m donating my body to science while I’m still alive,” Molly...
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From a Life Saved to Saving Lives
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
As a young person starting over in a new country—one where she didn’t even yet know the language—young Yelena faced no shortage of challenges. But she also found opportunity she believes might not have existed in her native country. “As an Armenian individual growing up in Azerbaijan, going by my parents’ and my family’s experience, I don’t think I would have had an opportunity to be a physician there,” Dr. Janjigian says. “There was a clear limitation on who got to be a physician, and it’s a prestigious position anywhere in the world. As a relative minority,...
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The Doctor is in ... and on Instagram
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
These days, there’s no getting around it: In a society that practically lives online, it’s no surprise that two-thirds of people with cancer—and their caregivers—turn to social media to inform their treatment and care decisions. Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that doctors like thoracic medical oncologist Eric Singhi, MD, would eventually follow suit. After all, what better way to reach and educate patients than by meeting them where they are? And if Dr. Singhi can counteract a little medical misinformation and help people better understand and appreciate the lifesaving...
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Conquering Cancer with Soap and Science
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
With a rare exception here and there, most scientists will at least complete a college-level science class before making their first cancer research breakthrough. Heman Bekele, on the other hand, is just wrapping up his sophomore year of high school. By the time he was named Time Magazine’s Kid of the Year in 2024, Heman was already generating buzz in the scientific community. The year before, he’d won the grand prize in the 2023 3M Young Scientist’s Challenge, in which kids compete to think of the most unique solutions to common problems. His entry? A soap that could...
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The Bell: A Viral Journey to Conquering Cancer
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
It started—as these stories so often do—with fatigue. At first, Jace Yawnick simply chalked it up to a busy life and a job requiring frequent travel. But then he noticed something: There were times the fatigue kicked in when he hadn’t just gotten off a plane or done anything else particularly strenuous. “Intuitively,” Jace says, “something within me just knew something wasn’t right.” Then came the coughing and the back pain. It would be months—and more than one misdiagnosis—before doctors found the problem: Hodgkin lymphoma. As he processed the news of his...
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The Comeback: How Emma Learned to Love Life Again
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
The first cancer diagnosis was scary enough. “I feel like Hollywood actually gets this moment pretty darn right,” Emma says, recalling the day—not long before her 18th birthday—that she learned she had cancer. “The world around you kind of slows down, you get tunnel vision, maybe a little dizzy. The only thing you can really hear is your breathing and your heart rate.” Eventually—following multiple rounds of chemotherapy—Emma was declared cancer-free. But then came the second diagnosis. “The key difference between the first and...
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Misinformed: The Online Rise and Real-Life Risk of Medical Misinformation
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
Whether you find it on social media, via search engine, or on a popular news website, it often seems like medical misinformation is everywhere, including in the cancer space. Maybe it’s the claim that sugar causes cancer to spread faster. Maybe it’s someone saying that people with dark skin don’t get skin cancer. Or maybe it’s the conspiracy theory that drug companies and government agencies are withholding the cure for cancer so they can continue to profit from expensive oncology care. These are just a few examples of purported cancer facts you might...
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Two Cancers, One Lung, and Seven Summits
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
While his teenage classmates were getting ready for school, then-13-year-old Sean Swarner was watching the water rise in the shower, his hair clogging the drain. His first cancer diagnosis—and the subsequent treatment regimen—took an immense toll on his self-image and well-being. That morning in the shower, he remembers, all of the fear and despair overcame him: Sean collapsed to his knees, tears and tap water streaming down his face. “I remember looking at myself in the mirror,” he recalls, “and I couldn’t even recognize who was looking back.” After a year of treatment, Sean...
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Lessons in Self-Care (and Self-Love) with Cancer Fashionista
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
For patients with cancer, the holiday season can be particularly difficult: How is anyone supposed to prioritize self-care and recovery at a time when much of the world is going on about the joys of giving? As a breast cancer survivor and a career fashion and beauty publicist, Melissa Berry is all too familiar with that challenge, along with the massive toll cancer can have on a person’s self-image. Enter Cancer Fashionista, a platform she’s built to help patients and survivors navigate cancer without sacrificing their self-confidence, self-worth, and self-empowerment. In this episode...
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Big Time Adulting: Kids, Cancer, and a Lesson in Laughter
Your Stories: Conquering Cancer
Caitlin Murray has mastered turning life’s setbacks into something that brings joy to the 1.5 million people around the world who follow her Instagram page. When her 3-year-old son, Calum, was diagnosed with leukemia in 2016, Caitlin and her family’s lives were quickly filled with doctor visits, grueling treatments, and endless uncertainty. Soon after Calum’s devastating diagnosis, Caitlin launched her blog, Big Time Adulting, to help keep her family informed and to cope with the challenges of parenting a child with cancer. However, Caitlin’s unique style of humor ultimately amassed...
info_outlineAs a little girl, Kenedi loves eating ice cream, drawing stories about her family’s chickens, and playing with her sister. But at age 7, after feeling sick for some time, a cancer diagnosis upended Kenedi’s life.
Despite being the top disease-related cause of death for children, pediatric cancers are still considered rare. As with most rare diseases, childhood cancer receives far less research funding compared with more common cancers. The consequence? Fewer breakthroughs or treatment options for patients. Even so, elevated investment in childhood cancer research has provided a lifeline for kids like Kenedi, ultimately increasing their odds of survival. Funded by a Conquer Cancer grant, her own oncologist, Dr. Wendy Allen-Rhoades, dedicated significant effort to identifying warning signs signaling the presence of sarcoma cells in the body. This donor-supported research resulted in a clinical trial that ultimately — and successfully — informed Kenedi’s treatment. By age 8, Kenedi was in remission.
In our latest Your Stories podcast, Dr. Allen-Rhoades talks to host Brenda Brody about caring for Kenedi, why raising awareness and funds for childhood cancer research is so critical, and how supporting Conquer Cancer helps pediatric oncologists and the children they treat.