Right Here – a podcast from Texas Oncology

Mellany Gray, an organized business owner and mother of two, spent most of her time driving her teenagers from one sport to the next. An avid fan of enjoying the “simple pleasures” of life, Mellany’s life suddenly became anything but simple when a lump on her leg was diagnosed as embryonal alveolar pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma – a rare form of sarcoma found in less than 1% of adult cancer patients...

Nell Nations, a chief radiation therapist at Texas Oncology, was no stranger to cancer. Growing up, Nell watched her dad fight  Hodgkin lymphoma , followed by her mom with  breast cancer . After their passing, she decided to pursue a career in cancer care – inspired by the empathy exemplified by her parents' care teams. Her relationship with this disease soon changed when what she thought was chro...

Walker Huggins is known as one of the youngest music directors in the Texas rodeo industry. When he wasn’t running audio at the rodeo, he was learning to ride bucking horses and traveling across the state with his dad. With big plans ahead of him, Walker’s world suddenly shifted when the strange symptoms he had been feeling for months led him to having a seizure at home and being rushed to the hos...

Heather Field, a wife, mother of two, and business owner always made time for everything and everyone – except herself. Despite being young and healthy, the chest pain and high blood pressure she originally wrote off as stress and anxiety turned into a diagnosis of  stage II breast cancer . Heather met with  Carlos A. Encarnación, M.D., FACP , at Texas Oncology–Waco , who had previously treated he...

Steve Dombek was an active guy who skied three times a year, played competitive soccer, and always dove across the sand volleyball court. Until one day, Steve experienced a pain in his side, which led to a double diagnosis of multiple myeloma and systemic mastocytosis – a rare blood disorder most commonly seen in patients twice his age. As someone who gives it his all in everything he does, Steve...

Pearce Murphy was a happy-go-lucky fourth grader who loved playing baseball, building pillow forts, and bonding with his three other siblings. Until one day he returned from summer camp with a stomachache that wouldn't go away. After multiple tests and possible theories including everything but cancer, Pearce was diagnosed with stage three, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Burkitt's type B. Cancer as a 10-...

April Samuels, a talented and tenacious drummer, treated her triple negative breast cancer exactly as she would any drum… beat it and don’t quit. Thanks to her unwavering determination and her drive to turn a negative into a positive, April is not only cancer-free, but she is using her experiences to help others battling cancer through her non-profit, Breast Cancer Can Stick It!. She credits Dr. J...

Lyndsay Levingston was a successful journalist with a thriving career in New York City when she discovered she had breast cancer. She now faced the biggest story of her life: the battleground in her own body. Lyndsay credits Dr. Jamie Terry, M.D., MHCE, FACS, a breast cancer surgeon at Texas Breast Specialists-Houston Memorial City, as the ‘captain of her breast cancer survivorship.’ Cancer free s...

Lisa and Erica are two women in Texas who had never met, were both diagnosed with cancer, and were not immediately in love with the idea of a so-called support group. Despite this hesitation, they gave it a try, and good thing they did. During the pandemic and a fateful snowstorm, the two formed an unbreakable bond – a sisterhood and forever friendship that enabled them to redefine the meaning of...

Sydney had just given birth when she started experiencing strange symptoms. First rib pain, then back pain that wouldn’t let up. She saw an orthopedic specialist who advised her to take some ibuprofen, but something told Sydney that wasn’t going to do the trick. After seeking additional medical advice, Sydney soon learned she had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and required immediate and aggressive...