Category: Survivorship

Backpacking is hard enough without a softball-sized tumor in your leg. Not that it stopped JC Cunningham from tackling a section of the Appalachian Trail near Wesser, North Carolina, last Memorial Day. His hiking partner — a physician — had other thoughts. 

Nurses at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are known for providing exceptional care and going above and beyond for their patients. Brenda Peoples, a patient undergoing acute leukemia care in UAB’s Hematology/Oncology unit, experienced just how far her nurses were willing to go to bring her and her boyfriend a special moment of happiness that could impact them for a lifetime.

Frank Baker never thought he would have the word “cancer” associated with his name. Baker, a former major league baseball player with the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles, had never even been admitted to a hospital before. That changed in March 2018.

It took a harrowing diagnosis of aplastic anemia, two unsuccessful chemotherapy treatments, 50 blood transfusions, more than 25 platelet injections, and almost three years and 4,650 miles before Talladega, Alabama, native Jimmy Roberson could meet who he says is his angel here on Earth.

As the coordinator and co-founder of what is now the University of Alabama at Birmingham Breast Health Center, Madeline Harris counseled and empathized with countless cancer patients over the years. She never imagined that her daughter, Kristen Noles, would someday be one of them.

When doctors found that 46-year-old Hayden Olds of Fairhope, Alabama, had a low-risk lesion on his prostate, Olds says he was caught off guard because he had not experienced any symptoms and was younger than the typical prostate cancer patient. To ensure he made the right decision moving forward, he chose to come to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.