When you ask Grace Taylor about herself, sports are the first thing she mentions. “I have been playing sports my whole life. I love sports,” she says. Grace recently finished her junior year at Harvard University, where she plays Division I women’s lacrosse. She casually adds that she is also studying environmental science and economics, working on a thesis to create an algorithm to predict zoonotic epidemics. “I’m trying to understand the emergence of Ebola, essentially,” she says.
But sports are her identity — the very thing that makes Grace, Grace. That is why, during a routine well visit the summer before her sophomore year, her world turned upside down when her pediatrician felt swelling around her thyroid. After multiple follow-ups, doctors determined Grace had papillary thyroid cancer, and she was immediately referred to Massachusetts General Hospital.
The Best Care
Grace began seeing Antonia Stephen, MD, a specialist in thyroid and parathyroid surgery and director of Mass General’s Endocrine Surgery Fellowship. Although papillary thyroid cancer is the most common type of thyroid cancer, especially in younger adults, the treatment can be complicated. Dr. Stephen worked with her colleagues, including Grace’s endocrinologist Giuseppe Barbesino, MD, to develop a treatment plan in which surgery was determined to be the best course of action.
“It’s a different life after you’ve gone through treatment — both mentally and physically. My body is different and my outlook on life is different.”
“Papillary thyroid cancer is the most common type of thyroid cancer. It also has the best prognosis. Grace has a subtype of papillary cancer that grows and spreads more rapidly, especially to the lymph nodes in the neck. It requires a lengthy and difficult surgery to remove the tumor — which includes removal of the thyroid gland and the surrounding lymph nodes. There are risks to this surgery, including permanent damage to the voice nerves, which can impact not only the voice, but also breathing and swallowing,” says Dr. Stephen. “These are important functions for a patient at any age, but for someone like Grace who’s young and athletic, the risks feel magnified, and could impact her ability to participate in college sports.”
That September, Grace went into surgery — the approximate 17-hour surgery took place over the course of two days. Grace believes the expertise of Dr. Stephen and her team at Mass General, as well as her overall physical health as a student athlete, are what allowed her to endure the ordeal. “I was in the best shape of my life, so when it was determined that Dr. Stephen needed to continue the surgery for a second day, after 10 hours already, we rested and dialed in,” she says. “I’m still in awe of what Dr. Stephen and her whole team were capable of during that time.”
Finding Connection
Grace’s surgery was successful, and without complications, and she was able to join her lacrosse team to play that spring season. But she is the first to admit that the experience has been lifechanging. “It’s a different life after you’ve gone through treatment — both mentally and physically. My body is different and my outlook on life is different,” Grace says.
“Caring for someone as young as Grace is unlike caring for someone whose life is much farther along,” says Dr. Stephen. “We have great resources at Mass General to support younger people going through treatment. We can do the surgery to remove the cancer, but we need to consider the other factors in their young lives that are impacted, like school, athletics, dating and future fertility, so that throughout their life they are able to do the things they want to do.”
Grace was referred to Mass General Cancer Center’s Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Program — a service sustained through philanthropy that provides multidisciplinary support to adolescents and young adults with cancer. Initially funded by the families of two young patients who sought greater connection with peers during their own treatment journeys, AYA has become a safety net for dozens of young patients with cancer.
“AYA provides wraparound, additional supports for a unique group — young people who are in the prime of their life and are now facing a very derailing diagnosis,” says Annah Abrams, MD, director of the AYA program and chief of the Division of Pediatric Psycho-oncology. “We perform a needs assessment to identify their concerns. Maybe it’s their reproductive health, maybe it’s mental health, maybe they have questions about medical marijuana. They can be very specific, and the assessment allows us to provide the supports they need during this pivotal time.”
Grace has found solace in support groups — she leans on her friends during their meetups where they discuss their feelings around making complicated, life-altering choices.
“I had just turned 19 when I was diagnosed; I felt like I had just become an adult, and I had to make very adult decisions that could change my future,” Grace says. “When I would talk to my ‘cancer friends,’ and we’d share our anxieties, we could relate. We could weigh the pros and cons and do so with true understanding.”
Giving Back to AYA
Since Grace’s cancer diagnosis and her involvement with AYA, she has participated in a handful of fundraising events in support of the program, including the Mass General Cancer Center Eversource 5k Run-Walk — an annual event that provides critical funding for supportive care services like AYA. She often participates alongside her encouraging and compassionate lacrosse teammates. To date, they have collectively raised more than $10,000 for AYA.
“AYA has been instrumental in my survivorship. It has provided me perspective and an opportunity to figure out what it means to live a really great life and to live as a cancer patient, because those two things aren’t mutually exclusive,” says Grace. “I will always do what I can to give back to a program that has given me so much.”
To learn more about how you can support the AYA Cancer Program, click here.
