Duke Health

When Nathalie Delpeche was diagnosed with a recurrent phyllodes tumor, she turned to social media for information. There, she learned about Laura H. Rosenberger, MD, a breast surgical oncologist at Duke Health, and one of the nation’s leading experts in this rare tumor that grows in the breast. A few clicks later, Delpeche connected with a phyllodes tumor survivor in Durham who is also Dr. Rosenberger’s patient. Those connections convinced Delpeche to travel from her home in Brooklyn to receive her care at Duke. “I’m in the right place,” she said. “It’s worth the travel every three weeks.”

Watching Diane and Dean Lamont push the engagement cart around a waiting room in the Duke Cancer Center, you can sense that they share a common mission and purpose. The feeling doesn’t only come from their matching blue vests that say “Duke Cancer Patient Support Program” and “Volunteer.”

The Lamonts manifest their mission through the kind and caring way they speak to people while they distribute snacks, cold drinks, and adult coloring books. And through the way they connect their 36 years of volunteering to their own experience with cancer. The married couple are survivors of Dean’s non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, diagnosed more than 30 years ago. At that time, cancer support programs were in their infancy.

When a suspicious lump in her neck wouldn’t go away, 52-year-old Kim Barnard learned she had cancer. The Roxboro, NC resident’s first move was transferring her care to Duke Health, where a team of head and neck oncologists worked quickly to confirm her diagnosis and begin treatment. After undergoing treatment, Barnard shows no evidence of cancer, is back to work, and is spending time with her beloved family, dog, and horses.