“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nancy Barnabei is a numbers person. As a consulting chief financial officer in the biopharmaceutical industry, she’s used to quantifying data. So when at age 40, Nancy was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer, she took a close look at her odds.

Sometimes breaking the rules isn’t a bad thing. Most police departments have policies prohibiting officers from sporting facial hair, so when the Harvey Cedars Police Department on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, wanted to participate in “No Shave November” they had to get special permission.

Walk into one of the treatment rooms at Penn Medicine's Roberts Proton Therapy Center, and the first thing you’ll notice is the massive machine in the middle: the focal point of the world’s most precise radiation therapy.

"Climbing forces you to think about your mortality and where you are in the big picture. We can't choose the things that happen to us, but we can choose how we respond, and that's why I chose the Abramson Cancer Center." — Alex Wildman, rock climber, nurse, and lymphoma survivor

Drs. Katherine (Kate) Nathanson and Andrew Ochroch’s meet cute is likely familiar to many of those who grew up and attended school in the Philadelphia area, as they did

Lynne Goldstein is a photographer, long-time Philadelphian, and seven time cancer survivor. She has faced many battles both physically and emotionally, often finding herself “living life between cancers.”

"When you decide where to undergo treatment, you have to trust the people who are treating you. As soon as we met our doctors at the Abramson Cancer Center, they had our full confidence." — Pat Carstensen, Abramson Cancer Center advocate.

In 2010, Anne Marie Hughes had pain in her lower abdomen so severe it took her to the emergency room. There she was diagnosed with diverticulitis.

Marge Aitken was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2006, at a time when treatment options were limited. Since then, scientists have made great strides in blood cancer research that is bringing hope to people facing these cancers.