Doctor Draws Strength from Own Experience after Surviving Cancer to Inspire Young Patients
During his teenage years, Dr. Greg Aune spent so much time playing football. He thought about nothing else but the sports he was playing until he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Dr. Gregory Aune, the UT Health San Antonio Pediatric Oncologist who beat cancer, is currently on a mission to help young people with cancer.
In a news report, this medical professional said, recalling the days when he was a young athlete said, his sophomore year in high school was spent playing a lot of sports, specifically, football.
Remembering his days from nearly three decades back, this then 16-year-old young man was growing up in Eastern Washington State when, one day, he began feeling something in his chest.
Dr. Aune said he had a mass in his neck "right about my clavicle for about nine months." He also shared he remembered coughing a lot at certain times.
But despite the experience, the pediatric oncologist said he never thought of anything out of the coughing during that time.
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The Feeling Worsened
As days passed, the doctor recalled, the mass grew bigger rapidly. The size, he described, was almost the same size as his fist "or even bigger."
Soon after, it was found that Dr. Aune had Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a cancer type that can limit the body's capacity to combat infections.
After he learned about his illness, the doctor shared he did not think, a day had passed since the diagnosis that he hadn't thought about it. It was something he felt, and he'd take with him forever.
After one year of numerous operations and nine weeks of radiation, Dr. Aune said, the chemotherapy treatment ended up damaging his body all the more.
In his mid-30s, the doctor lost about 70 pounds and needed open-heart surgery. And, because of the chemotherapy he underwent, Dr. Aune suffered diabetes and minor stroke.
The Pain Cause by Cancer, as His Source of Strength
The pain he'd been through, and all the challenges became Aune's source of strength. What he experienced, he said, through the treatment, was what drove him into what and who he is now.
The doctor considered his condition more as a blessing than a problem. Because of his experience, he shared he got a lot of visions in how to treat cancer.
As a father of four kids, Dr. Aune clearly understands what it's like. This doctor has used being a cancer survivor to educate different families.
Going through the open-heart surgery, the doctor said, really led his career in a direction. He added, he wanted to employ some of his scientific expertise to find out how therapies like "chemotherapy and radiation" damage the heart.
Relatively, similar to his battle with cancer as a teenage boy, his personal struggle guided his academic path towards devising a laboratory program evaluating the basic science of surviving pediatric cancer.
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Helping Young Cancer Patients
Currently, Dr. Aune is helping young cancer patients as a researcher and pediatric oncologist at UT Health San Antonio.
As such, this cancer survivor shared he wants to be "a beacon of hope for some of the patients." As a researcher, Aune added, there is a need to keep making progress as there are still a lot of patients being diagnosed.
The pediatric oncologist is currently doing his research at the Greehey Children's Cancer Research Institute, the largest research facility in Texas with a focus on pediatric cancer.
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