Most people don’t know that you’re considered a cancer survivor at the moment of diagnosis. It wasn’t always this way. Sixty years ago, a cancer diagnosis was a death sentence. And if you did survive, you were left to figure out the rest of your life on your own.
But some survivors demanded something different, something better.
This is The Cancer Mavericks, a deep-dive narrative into the people who fought for better treatment, forced doctors to listen, and pushed America to see the human side of the disease.
Episodes of this series will publish monthly through the end of December 2021 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the National Cancer Act of 1971.
Facing a diagnosis of cancer at any age is horrible. But for young adults, it’s just plain different. Not better. Not worse. Different. Those diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 39 are on a planet all their own, often left to fend for themselves as lost voices sandwiched between pediatrics and adult cancer. The consequences of living with, through, and, ideally, beyond cancer carries with it a whole host of unique long-term issues, issues that had fallen under the radar and gone ignored by the system for far too long.
In this episode, we talk to a new generation of cancer mavericks like Tamika Felder, Heidi Adams, Doug Ulman, and Lindsay Nohr-Beck, who revived a dying national conversation on cancer survivorship in the earliest days of the Internet. They created edgy websites, forced doctors to listen by creating fertility preservation guidelines, and fought to bring the invisible and underserved voice of the young adult cancer community into the national public spotlight.
For more information about this series, visit https://CancerMavericks.com.
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