Ringing the Bell Is Not the Finish Line: Desa-Rhea Jefferson on What Cancer Survivors Need Next
Desa-Rhea Jefferson survived liver cancer at 3 and thyroid cancer as an adult. She says ringing the bell is a starting point, not a finish line. Read more ...
There Is No Right or Wrong Way to Grieve: Joslyn Trovati on Grief, Survivorship, and Whole Person Cancer Care
Joslyn Trovati is an oncology therapist and young adult cancer survivor who advocates for grief support and Whole Person Cancer Care. Read her story ...
Saved by a Trial, Building the Fix: Eshan Vishwakarma’s Path from Patient to Founder
Diagnosed with neuroblastoma at three, Eshan Vishwakarma now builds tools to fix cancer care navigation. A Cancer Nation Advocate shares his story and why he is passionate about access and survivorship ...
From Diagnosis to Doctor: When No One Was Listening, Jesse Lindemann, MD, Became the Doctor She Needed
Jessie Lindemann, MD, spent months being dismissed before her Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis. Now she's a cancer survivor, family doctor, and advocate building survivorship care in North Dakota ...
Outliving the Odds, Rewriting the Path: Tom Warren’s Story of Survivorship and Advocacy
Meet Tom Warren. Six years after a rare cancer diagnosis he was never expected to survive, Tom is redefining what it means to live with and beyond cancer; navigating lasting side effects, loss of identity, and a new path forward through advocacy ...
Faith, Family, and the Power of Saying Yes: Daria Ross on Turning Survivorship Into Action
Meet Daria Ross: Triple Negative Breast Cancer Survivor and Advocate whose work focuses on patient education, community-centered advocacy, and turning lived experience into policy change ...
Research Made Survival Possible: Brandon Hertzendorf on Turning Experience into Advocacy
Brandon Hertzendorf’s path to advocacy sits at the intersection of lived experience, research, and a deep belief that cancer care can and must be better. Born and raised in South Florida, Brandon describes his childhood as fairly typical. That changed during high school [...] ...
The Meaning We Make: Laurel Braitman’s Path from Co-Survivor to Advocate
Advocate Spotlight: Laurel Braitman Laurel Braitman has spent her life at the intersection of story, healing, and human connection. As a writer, teacher, and the Director of Writing and Storytelling at the Stanford School of Medicine, she helps medical students, clinicians, and future health leaders learn how to speak to ...
Janice Cowden: From Survivor to System Challenger
At Cancer Nation, we are powered by the voices of those who live with, through, and beyond cancer. We don’t speak on behalf of survivors—we amplify those who are already speaking. This month, we’re honored to feature Janice Cowden, a metastatic breast cancer (MBC) advocate whose work in research, policy, ...
From Counselor to Cancer Advocate: Arlene Kutoroff’s Journey of Strength, Intuition, and Impact
Meet Arlene Kutoroff. She’s a fiercely independent survivor and longtime volunteer advocate who channels her background in counseling into helping others navigate life after cancer ...
