Patient Testimonial - "Cancer Does Not Define A Person, But It May Help Define A Career Path”

Recently 40-year-old Greg Schardt walked through the doors of the June E. Nylen Cancer Center to meet with the providers and staff as a representative of Genentech as part of his job as an account manager with the pharmaceutical company. It brought back a flood of memories. Memories from 1998 to 2012 when he was a patient at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center.

It was at the end of his freshman year in 1998 in Wayne, NE when a persistent lump in his neck didn’t go away after antibiotics and multiple negative tests eventually led to a biopsy when Greg learned he had stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Greg’s parents brought him to the Siouxland Regional Cancer Center (the name before it changed to the June E. Nylen Cancer Center) in Sioux City, and there as a young man, he met Dr. Donald Wender who would become his medical oncologist.

“I remember feeling all the emotions,” said Greg. “I was mad, angry, confused, and sad. Not as much scared because I was more upset about not being able to play football and sports. It didn’t make sense because I felt fine, I didn’t have any symptoms besides the lump in my neck.”

Greg went on to add that he had probably had cancer for a while because he recalls the images showing cancer in most of his upper body up to his esophagus. Greg’s parents took him for a second opinion at Nebraska Medicine who agreed with Dr. Wender’s treatment plan.

“I liked that the (June E. Nylen Cancer Center) was smaller, easier to get to. It just felt like the right place for me,” Greg says.

Greg’s treatment included having a port added for his weekly chemotherapy infusions for 12 weeks. He states he didn’t ever really feel sick or have side effects from the chemo. Greg recalls the anti-nausea medication, Zofran, was new and he gained 10-20 pounds due to taking Prednisone. “I had to be the ugliest kid at Homecoming,” laughed Greg. “I was a teenager so I had the whole puberty thing going on, braces too, but then I didn’t shave my head.” Greg had good friends that stuck up for him when bullying happened.

Physically Greg says he was fine going through his treatment, but mentally and emotionally, he didn’t handle it well. There were a lot of “why me” thoughts and he was depressed. “I was already a teenager struggling to ‘be normal’ and for social acceptance but I was not seen as normal,” said Greg.

While Greg’s cancer was considered to be in remission after his chemotherapy, the protocol was to follow with radiation treatment. He traveled to the cancer center for daily radiation for a month. Greg says that as horrible as the bone marrow testing had been early in his diagnosis, radiation was probably the hardest part of his cancer journey. His radiation was to his neck and upper body so eating became challenging. He lost the weight he had gained on Prednisone and more. He missed a lot of school due to his treatment appointments as well as not being able to attend at all when his white blood counts would be low. Greg notes he dropped from second in his class to 15th and no longer got all A’s.

Greg says he continued to struggle emotionally because cancer cheated a year and more of his life. He remained emotionally angry underneath for several years, but seeds were planted throughout all his experiences, leading him to pharmacy school. Greg continued regular follow-ups with the cancer center in Sioux City throughout his college years at the University of Nebraska, as he became a Doctor of Pharmacy at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), and years later.

“Dr. Wender basically fired me,” Greg laughed. “Really, he told me I had reached a long enough time frame following my cancer that recurrence was highly unlikely and I could get labs where I lived and I didn’t need annual appointments anymore. My last appointment was in 2012. Your cancer center was like my home because I had been there so much.”

When Greg walked through the cancer center’s doors recently for work but years after his last appointment, he said a lot was the same and it brought back numerous flashbacks – the lobby layout, certain smells, the red urine he had as a side effect, his teenage crush on one of the nurses, Dr. Wender’s authentic and straightforward nature. 

After several years of being a clinical pharmacist in a couple of different hospitals in Lincoln and Omaha, then serving in pharmacy leadership roles for a larger healthcare system, Greg went to work in 2020 at Genentech. He met his wife, Leah, in pharmacy school and she is a pharmacist in an outpatient oncology practice. They live in Papillion, NE, and have three boys. You could say Greg’s cancer journey helped define his career path.

It also made him a huge advocate for taking care of yourself, being comfortable having conversations about what we can do to protect ourselves and our children from cancer, and prevention strategies.

“What happened to me was not knowingly preventable,” says Greg. “I feel lucky to be able to give back by advocating to others all they can do to prevent cancer. They need to get screened, they need to routinely go see their primary care doctor, they need to get checked out if something seems wrong.”

Greg is active in a men’s workout group, has competed in sprint triathlons, and serves on the Lower Plains Board of Trustees of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

This Christmas will be 25 years cancer free for Greg. “I believe in community-based oncology care like that offered at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center,” he says. “Cancer care and survivorship have come a long way over the years. I’m so happy JENCC is still in Sioux City and serving the rural areas. There are such great people there.”

Greg's photo from his 1998-1999 high school ID.

Greg graduated as a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).

A recent photo of Greg and his wife, Leah, and their 3 sons.