Sickle cell disease hasn’t made life easy for Xavius Hymes, 27, of Pine Bluff, but he hasn’t let it keep him from dreaming big. In fact, he uses the disease as fuel to keep going. “If anything, I feel like sickle cell anemia has made me mentally stronger,” Hymes said in a YouTube video. “It’s…
| One day as Haley Myers Clark looked out the window of her Camden home, lost in painful memories of losing her premature son, Noah, a little blue butterfly fluttered by. “My mom would always tell me, ‘If you see a butterfly, that’s somebody from Heaven coming to see you, and that’s God sending a…
After years of learning how to handle pain crises when they come and developing a routine for care, Cyncere Tidwell says sickle cell disease is just another part of her life. “Other than the pain crises, sickle cell doesn’t bother me,” she said. “I’ve been dealing with it for so long that it’s nothing new…
John Reed, RN, is on the front lines of cancer. As a nurse in the UAMS Endoscopy Lab, he spends about 50 weeks a year helping patients through colon cancer screening procedures, mainly colonoscopies. But after a routine doctor’s appointment in 2020, Reed became the patient. “I felt fine, but my iron levels were really…
For throat cancer survivor Shalonda Michelle, there are exactly 3,815 miles between being sick and being healthy. It’s the distance between Fairbanks, Alaska, where her medical journey began, to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, where she finally found healing. Michelle’s harrowing experience began in 2010. She was…
UAMS patient treated by James Suen, M.D., is one of the oldest living cancer survivors in Arkansas A favorite pillow in Maddie Upton’s Camden, Arkansas, home reads, ‘I’m so far up the hill, I’ve started up the next one.’ At 104, there is no old age joke she hasn’t heard, and she shows no…
All Quatisa East wanted was for her infant daughter, Dallas Carter, to be able to see. A rare diagnosis of retinoblastoma, or cancer of the eye, threatened that possibility. “I didn’t give up on her — everything I’ve done is just being a mother,” said the 29-year-old. It’s been a long road for Dallas and…
As part of the National Football League’s (NFL) annual My Cause, My Cleats campaign, Denver Broncos defensive tackle D.J. Jones donated a pair of custom cleats to the Myeloma Center at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. Since 2016, participating NFL teams and players customize footwear with designs…
Even though Josh Pretty can’t remember what happened to him, his family and friends will never forget his fall Nov. 12 from the top of a 30-foot ladder while hanging Christmas lights from a customer’s house. They didn’t anticipate the accident or the sight of the severe injuries he received from it.
About 25-30% of patients worldwide with Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer die in less than three months. But with talented doctors, advances in treatment and a bit of luck, some patients beat the odds. John Pertuis, 62, is a member of this rarified group of lung cancer “long” survivors. With help from the UAMS…