A health crisis can put life into perspective, shatter it or inspire change.
Many people also hope opening up about their unexpected diagnosis and symptoms can help others. Some leave an incredible legacy after death.
Here are some of the health heroes we met in 2023:
Mom, 38, announces her own death from ovarian cancer, goes viral for last wish
Casey McIntyre wanted her loved ones to hear about her death directly from her. So in November, this post showed up on her social media pages:
“A note to my friends: if you’re reading this I have passed away. I’m so sorry, it’s horse (expletive) and we both know it. The cause was stage four ovarian cancer,” the New York book publisher wrote in her last message.
McIntyre was 38. She left behind her husband, Andrew Rose Gregory, and their 18-month-old daughter, Grace.
Her last wish was to erase other people’s medical debt through donations made to the charity RIP Medical Debt, and her story inspired an incredible response. More than $1 million was raised for a campaign in McIntyre’s name by the end of December.
After surviving cardiac arrest at 24, woman shares the warning sign she missed
Brittany Williams suspected something was wrong when the left side of her body suddenly went “numb and tingly” at work. When she checked her symptoms online, stroke, heart attack and cardiac arrest came up as possible causes.
But her boss brushed off her concerns.
“'You’re 24 years old. You run five miles a day. You eat extremely healthy, that would never happen to you,'” Williams recalled her boss saying.
“I trusted her. And three days later, I was on the ground in a restaurant in Times Square with no pulse.”
She suffered a cardiac arrest, but two strangers kept her alive by performing CPR until emergency personnel arrived.
Williams was diagnosed with a condition that causes a fast, irregular heartbeat and received an implantable defibrillator to prevent another episode. She now encourages people to learn CPR and be aware of their heart health.
Her cough was diagnosed as COVID-19 pneumonia. It was lung cancer
When Emily Walthall, 39, suddenly developed a dry cough, scans of her chest showed both of her lungs “just looked like a mess,” she recalls.
But she wasn’t a smoker, so her primary care doctor didn’t suspect cancer and diagnosed her with COVID-19 pneumonia, even though Walthall never tested positive for the virus.
It later turned out to be stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer that had spread to her spine and brain.
About 15% of lung cancer patients have never smoked, says Dr. Jared Weiss, an oncologist at UNC Health in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who is treating Walthall.
“If you have lungs, you can get lung cancer,” Weiss tells TODAY.com.
Walthall responded well to targeted therapy and says many people have no idea she’s living with a serious disease for which there's no a cure.
‘When I got cancer, everyone brought food. I finally told them what I really wanted’
Julie Devaney Hogan went from being a busy executive to a patient overnight after she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. Friends started to bring over meals, but that's not what Hogan wanted.
“I knew my days of feeling good enough to do things like cook dinner were numbered, but until I started chemotherapy, that’s exactly what I wanted to do — and no one was going to take that away from me,” she wrote in an essay for TODAY.com.
“I didn’t want to keep rejecting the love and generosity from our family, friends and neighbors — I just didn’t want it to come in the form of food.”
Hogan then made a list of what she really wanted, including beach walk buddies, positive energy and support for her kids.
Astrophysicist, 30, poses for Sports Illustrated after double mastectomy
Sarafina El-Badry Nance was in her 20s when she found out she carried the BRCA2 gene mutation, which significantly raised her risk of breast cancer. Doctors told her she’d need screenings every six months.
Nance found that unacceptable, so she had a preventative double mastectomy with a full breast reconstruction at age 26.
The astrophysicist then applied to appear in Sport Illustrated’s swimsuit issue and was flown to the Dominican Republic for a beach photoshoot.
“I think that the stereotypes of what a scientist looks like and what a body of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model looks like is embedded in my mind, in everybody’s minds,” she told TODAY.
“It was so empowering. I got to embrace my body in a way that I hadn’t gotten to post surgery.”
Bride beats rare cancer, finds unexpected love during treatment
When Sheri Shaw got married in June, her oncologists walked her down the aisle. She credits them for saving her life.
“It was a no brainer. I had to have them here. I wanted them to celebrate and see what they actually did for me in real time,” Shaw says.
She’d been diagnosed with rectal squamous cell cancer, a rare malignancy, after experiencing rectal bleeding.
“I’m a nurse, and it was still scary for me. It is for everyone,” she recalls.
As she sought treatment, Shaw thought it would be fair to release the man she’d been dating from the relationship, but he refused.
Now married, the couple bonded in sickness, and will enjoy their life in health, she says.
