PATIENT STORIES
2024 Sunday on the Green honoree Robert Mochel featured in UC Davis Health publication
Sunday on the Green annually honors a patient who has benefited from blood cancer research. This year, the recipient is Vietnam War veteran Robert Mochel of West Sacramento.
“I’m not used to being in the spotlight,” said Mochel, who was nicknamed “Mojo” during his two-year tour of duty in Vietnam. “I tell you what, though, Dr. Tuscano is fantastic and I’m pleased to help bring attention to his research. I feel a bond with him that I’ve never felt with any other doctor.”
Mochel was diagnosed in 2020 with myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood cancer that some researchers suspect may be linked to exposure to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange. During the 1970s, he was stationed with the U.S. Army in the Vietnamese province of Tây Ninh. Mochel served as a gunner in a Bell UH-1 “Huey” helicopter that routinely dropped the defoliant. That meant he was in close contact with the chemical herbicide and later became aware of its cancer risks.
2024 patient honoree Robert Mochel (right) played against his doctor Joe Tuscano in the 2023 Sunday on the Green tournament.
2023 Sunday on the Green Event Honoree
In 2023, our patient honoree at our annual fundraiser (Sunday on the Green) was Bradley Buchanan, a two-time cancer patient who is living with chronic Graft-versus-Host-Disease (GvHD), a result of a stem cell transplant in 2016 to treat his T-cell lymphoma. From his initial diagnosis in 2015, Brad’s journey with cancer has been complicated by a number of unique, rare and difficult-to-diagnose symptoms, which led his case to be labeled a ‘zebra’: it's not like all the other horses by his doctors.
Brad was referred to Dr. Tuscano at UCDMC in 2015, and has been under his care and counseling since then. Like many of us who have come to know Dr. Tuscano, Brad now calls the doctor his friend. During his multiple years of treatment and onset of many medical challenges, Brad turned to one of his passions – writing and reciting poetry – as an outlet for his emotions, fears, and experiences. His personal poetry was published as The Scars Aligned; A Cancer Narrative, and he has also published a manuscript called Living with GvHD.
A Love Story
A 28-year old newlywed gains a new future for his life after treatment for B-cell lymphoma by Dr. Tuscano at UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. Read Thomas' story.
By working together with Dr. Tuscano, Thomas and his family decided to enroll him in an immunotherapy clinical trial that was designed by Dr. Tuscano at UC Davis Health.
Advanced Tech
First UC Davis patient treated with help of new cancer-fighting cell therapy lab
Local researchers are on the frontlines of a cutting-edge cancer treatment that some are hailing a cure.
"Right now, about 40% of patients may have long-term remissions from this, which is remarkable because almost all of those patients would have died of their disease," said Dr. Joseph Tuscano with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. Read the full story.
