Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center Blog Posts and Newspaper Articles
I’ve been honored to write stories about remarkable patients, doctors and researchers as well as medical innovations for Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“He basically saved my life three times!”
Randy Rothwell remembers the winter of 2017. “My brother and I were out shoveling snow and my shoulder was hurting. I thought I’d thrown something out, so I went to the doctor but they couldn’t find anything wrong.”
Meet the Team: Roswell Park Hematology Oncology Southtowns
A new team of medical oncologists has joined Roswell Park Hematology Oncology Southtowns, bringing the best in early cancer diagnosis, patient-centered care, state-of-the-art treatment and pioneering clinical trials to the area. With the convenience of an on-site chemotherapy and infusion center, cancer patients throughout Aurora, Blasdell, East Aurora, Elma, Hamburg, Orchard Park, as well as hamlets and towns in the southern part of Erie County, can more easily access Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s vast range of expertise and comprehensive services closer to home, all in an established Southtowns practice that’s well known for its supportive and friendly environment. More…
To pee or not to pee? That is the question millions and millions of women ask themselves daily.
Survivorship care after colon cancer: Marlea's story
Roswell Park's Jamestown location makes cancer treatment and recovery easier for patients in New York's Southern Tier.
Marlea Brown is a colon cancer survivor. It’s a new role for the active, 79-year-old retired high school teacher living in Clymer, NY, and one that has elevated her appreciation for the value of family, community and medical support systems. Last year, while wintering in Florida, she was diagnosed with colon cancer and decided to come back to Buffalo to be treated at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. Story continued here.
“A story of courage often untold
In the lonely depths of night and day
We find the strength to light the way
In solitude I tried this painful road
A silent battle isolation's uprooted with courage as my compass
I stand strong facing chemotherapy
We're hoping lungs alone but not defeated
I endure the medicine’s fire, a pain, feel cure
Each dose a reminder of their self.”
Final verse of “Breast Cancers Battle”, Savvy’s (Savannah Stage’s) Fight Poem & Song
Savannah Stage knew something wasn’t right. When the 21-year-old mother of a newborn son felt a lump in her right breast early in 2019 she followed up with doctors and was told she had no need to worry. “Five years ago I tried to talk to doctors because something felt wrong. But they all said that it was a fibroid growth and were adamant that nothing was going on,” she recalls.
Some say there’s no such thing as a coincidence. Others, like Albert Einstein, have said, “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” For Moree Haskins, a 73-year-old wife, mother of five, grandmother of nine and great-grandmother of one, there’s no doubt that an unexpected series of coincidences improved her odds of survival when she learned she had stage III breast cancer.
“I felt I was finally being heard.”
When Tina Morgan, age 63, learned she might have lung cancer she was understandably anxious. A former half-pack-a-day smoker who started at age 14 and quit almost 40 years later, she had already lost both parents as well as two close friends to lung cancer. At her six-month check up when her primary doctor recommended she get a lung cancer screening, she readily agreed.
Carol Keller is a survivor.
In 2010, she experienced a sudden pulmonary embolism, the obstruction of a blood vessel in the lungs caused by blood clots. Her children quickly transferred her from her home in Ischua, NY, to Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo.
While in a coma, she was not aware of what was happening but when she awoke, she had good news and not good news. Her lung clots had been successfully dissolved, but during her tests and examinations, doctors had discovered she had endometrial cancer.
“It was a life-threatening experience,” recalls Carol, 79, a lifelong resident of Cattaraugus County, NY. “I didn’t realize that blood clots could be an indication of cancer. Once I had recovered from the embolism, I was referred to Roswell Park, where I was treated and had a full hysterectomy.”
Lung Cancer, Jamestown Post Journal, July, 2023
Jannette Lay started smoking at age 14.
“My mother used to smoke Kool cigarettes. They were menthol and 6 inches long and my friends and I would share one and feel nauseous and sick but also fabulously cool.”
At age 54, the effects of smoking up to two and a half packs a day was taking its toll. “I was a smoker and a drinker for 40 years,” says Lay. “It caught up to me and I developed cirrhosis and felt sick all the time. I realized I’d spent more than $50,000 on cigarettes that I’d never get back and decided to quit smoking and drinking, cold turkey.”
Nine years later, at age 64, Jannette has maintained her smoke-free and alcohol-free lifestyle. When she learned about Eddy, Roswell Park’s Early Detection Driven to You
mobile unit, she talked to her primary care provider about screening for lung cancer.
