After a routine colonoscopy led to a life-changing diagnosis, Holy Cross High School French teacher and dean Blaine Palmer has spent nearly a year undergoing treatment for colon cancer that spread to his liver. Now, surrounded by the support of students, colleagues, family, and friends, Palmer is searching for a living liver donor — what doctors say could help make him cancer-free.
The Anne V. Graziani Fund, a small nonprofit on Long Island, brings live entertainment — such as sporting events and other uplifting experiences — to cancer patients, many of them children.
Of the 16 New York state senators with districts in the Diocese of Brooklyn, eight are co-sponsors of Medical Aid In Dying Act. They call it “death with dignity,” but Father Morty O’Shea disagrees.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden, the nation’s second Catholic president and a Wilmington resident, revealed May 18 that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and it has metastasized to his bones.
When Jessica Hanna was diagnosed with cancer while pregnant, she fought to find treatment that would heal her and preserve the life of her unborn child. Months later, she had a healthy baby boy and scans showing no sign of cancer. But tragically, her cancer soon returned.
When Vivian Esposti was waging a 21-month-long battle with pancreatic cancer, a disease that would ultimately take her life, she asked her husband Edward to get a statue of St. Peregrine (the patron saint of cancer patients) for their church, St. Joseph’s. On July 24, Esposti was at the church keeping his promise to his wife.
On March 15, Constanza Alva de Urmeneta got in the car behind the hearse for the funeral procession of her 15-year-old daughter, Pía Urmeneta. Typically somber occasions, it was apparent from the second they drove off the church lot that this was instead a celebration of Pía’s life, just as she had wanted.
Maria Barragan, a mother from Guatemala who was battling stage 4 cancer and who was reunited with her undocumented husband in Brooklyn this past summer, passed away on Oct. 3.
Earlier this year, when Kate Baragona was diagnosed with cancer, she was stunned. But the news was also a reminder of how far-reaching the effects of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists attacks continue to be 18 years after the fact.
It’s been just over a year since Kaitlyn Rose Bernhardt of Mill Basin died from cancer, but the investigation into making her an ocial saint of the Catholic Church has already started with Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio’s blessing.
