‘Lump, scared, death’

After being diagnosed with liposarcoma at 28, Lance Miller of Kansas City, Missouri, decided to go back to school to study pharmacy.

“When I first found the lump on my leg, we did an MRI and it came back negative. They scheduled the surgery on April 1, which was kind of funny. It was supposed to be just outpatient surgery, and I would go home that day, but when they told me I was spending the night in the hospital, I knew something was wrong. The next day the doctor came in, and the pathology report was back, and it was cancer. It hit me like a brick.

“I was a 20-something that was invincible. Other than a few trips to the ER for stitches and four broken toes, I had never been sick. Now, I was facing a life-threatening disease.

“I was to follow up with orthopedic oncologist Dr. Rosenthal, thinking I might just get a little radiation. We sat down, and he wanted to do another surgery, then radiation. But first we had to wait till it healed. The surgery went fine, and there was no more cancer found in the surrounding tissues. About a week later, I met with the radiation oncologist to set up treatments. At first, the treatments were not so bad, but after a week, my fair skin started to burn, like a really bad sunburn…. I was cured.

“My cancer motivated me to return to school, ultimately earning my doctorate in pharmacy. I started back to school slowly, first just taking a few basic classes. I considered nursing school, but I did really well in chemistry, and one of my instructors was a pharmacist. I continued to take classes, then applied to pharmacy school at UMKC.

“I work in retail pharmacy, and when dealing with cancer patients, they are always the nicest of my patients. I have empathy for them. There are some basic compounded prescriptions that I mix up. Most retail pharmacies will not process these prescriptions. But I try and go above and beyond to help them. Then sometimes I lose them.”