Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center

Healing Begins Here

Grace Suomi was just 5 years old when her symptoms of Ewing’s sarcoma first appeared: terrible nightmares, soreness in her jaw and loss of appetite. While on a family vacation, her parents rushed her to an ear, nose and throat specialist after the right side of her cheekbone started to swell. The diagnosis was unlike anything they had ever anticipated.

Grace had a rare malignant tumor in her head and needed chemotherapy immediately. She couldn’t go back to school because her lowered blood counts put her at risk for infection. “[Grace] was so sick and in pain, and I felt helpless,” says Clare Suomi, Grace’s mother. “I had to watch all these doctors try to take care of my child, which is my job, and there was nothing I could do.”

Facing a year of treatment, the Suomis moved Grace’s care to the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC). Her yearlong journey to recovery had more than a few bumps in the road and dozens of hospitalizations, including six weeks of radiation with a feeding tube inserted into her stomach. But Grace progressed with a strength you wouldn’t expect to find in a child. In May 2011, she completed her treatment and is currently in remission.

As a comprehensive center, we treat almost every form of cancer. Consistently named among the top 10 cancer centers nationwide by U.S. News & World Report, JCCC is internationally renowned for developing new cancer therapies, providing the best in experimental and traditional treatments and expertly guiding and training the next generation of physician-scientists. We operate eight program areas organized to foster interdisciplinary and collaborative research across academic units. We also organize a variety of shared resources to help our researchers find more effective ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer.

In addition, we offer a full range of support services beyond clinical care. Patients have access to information and services on cancer prevention and survivorship, psychological support, education, nutrition, spirituality, mind/body, acupuncture and holistic approaches to healing and wellness.

Gifts to the JCC Foundation fund support cutting-edge research that helps improve the therapies available to cancer patients everywhere.