Breast cancer survivor Zelma Reid won’t be sidelined by a painful side effect. MD Anderson doctors used innovative surgical solutions to relieve her lymphedema, which is associated with the treatment of many cancers.
Summer 2018 : Patient’s course of treatment has fewer obstacles and inconveniences
Patient’s course of treatment has fewer obstacles and inconveniences
Judy Brinkerhoff says her drive to MD Anderson in the Bay Area from her home in east Texas is fast and convenient. Photo by Nick de la Torre
Judy Brinkerhoff vividly remembers the day a routine mammogram showed a suspicious lump in her right breast.
“My first thought was, ‘Do I have cancer?’” she recalls.
“My second was, get me to MD Anderson.”
Brinkerhoff, who lives in Orange, Texas, doesn’t mind the two-hour drive to reach MD Anderson in the Bay Area where she receives breast cancer care. She's just grateful for the peace of mind that comes from being treated at the country’s No. 1 cancer center.
“I'm very assured to know I’m getting the most up-todate care available anywhere,” she says. “At the Bay Area location, I get the same high-quality treatment I'd get at MD Anderson’s flagship location in the Texas Medical Center, but the drive from Orange to the Bay Area is faster and less complicated,” she says.
By taking Interstate 10 to Nassau Bay, where MD Anderson in the Bay Area is located, she travels a straightforward route, avoiding traffic jams and road construction.
Free parking and designated parking spaces for patients at the Bay Area campus make the trip even less stressful, says Brinkerhoff, a registered nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at a Port Arthur hospital.
“I see firsthand the pressure families face when their newborns are hospitalized,” she says. “I understand that stress. It's interesting to see it now from a patient's point of view.”
Brinkerhoff has completed two 12-week cycles of chemotherapy at the Bay Area location, and will start a year of targeted therapy just in time for the campus' upcoming move to League City this fall.
“I'm excited to see the new cancer center and to complete my treatment there,” she says. “Things just keep getting better at MD Anderson.”
At the Bay Area location, I get the same high-quality treatment I’d get at MD Anderson’s flagship location in the Texas Medical Center.
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