survivor_stories

For years, Darcie Buffone, a fourth-grade teacher at Armstrong School District’s Shannock Valley Elementary, struggled with weight. She tried diets an...

Earlier this year, Pine-Richland High School baseball coach Kurt Wolfe received the phone call that coaches hate to receive. It came at about 10:30 p....

Victor’s Mark Syverud was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 18 years ago but it wasn’t until just recently he realized he was experiencing a new symptom of t...

Staying active is how Linda Deabenderfer rolls with life. Going to the gym has been a regular part of her routine and she’s been a member of the S&T W...

Randy and Brenda Oaks were enjoying vacation in Myrtle Beach in May 2017. They did some relaxing, fishing and sight-seeing. But toward the end of this...

F or the past 24 years, Arthur Dilg did some pretty fun things, including taking his wife, Marilyn, on multiple trips to Germany to visit family. The ...

Let’s start with a story: A man goes to work at a steel mill. An explosion throws the man into a steel wall, setting him on fire. He suffers serious t...

A few years ago, Kelly and Michael Witter portrayed Laurey Williams and Curly McLain, respectively, in a community theater production of the musical “...

For Donna Lee, it took just five months of catastrophe to break a habit formed more than 40 years ago. Lee, an administrative assistant for Westinghou...

When Bob Shoup was a young man, his health took a surprising turn for the worse. But he kept up a positive attitude on what became a long and tumultuo...

Jason Wagner is a living example of how people can overcome the worst of times. Wagner, of Hyde Park, teaches science to fourth- and fifth-graders at ...

When one thinks of the relationship between drugs and music, the rock star lifestyle comes to mind. But for the estimated 23.5 million Americans who s...

Frances Halley had always known she had a heart murmur, but it wasn’t until she saw Dr. Stephen Bailey, Allegheny General Hospital’s director of cardi...

When Ada Fetsko was born on April 25, 2006, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Her mother, Denise Fetsko, had what she recalls as a normal pregnancy ...

It was May 2003. Maggie Spuhler, now a grade school teacher at Wheatland-Chili Central School District, was in her freshman year at State University o...

Lori Rieger’s family has a long history of breast cancer. Her mother, Lois Seelman, was diagnosed when she was 47. And Seelman was only 9 when her mot...

At one time, Jeff Taylor, 59, would have made the cover of a health magazine. Taylor ran the New York City Marathon. He climbed a trail on the Grand C...

It might seem odd to say that Linda Vance is a lucky person. After all, Vance fought lung cancer. But she is lucky; her cancer was discovered in stage...

It was a simple movement that alerted Carol Glock to her cancer. As she leaned over her husband’s shoulder to read something on his computer, her left...

At 44, Dr. Brian Elford had it all. A successful ear, nose and throat practice in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, a wonderful wife, four kids and a new...