Cancer Causes Cytotechnology Career

In 1999, at age 26, Melissa Pahl (B.S. Cytotechnology ’06) was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system.  The disease and the battle she fought took years, involved six months of chemotherapy and 26 rounds of radiation, and turned her life in an entirely new direction.

“It totally changed my life,” says the young woman from Jamestown who, at the time of her diagnosis, was operating a dog-grooming business which she had to close due to the illness.  Doctors advised her that “the chemo treatments were going to be very intense and my immune system compromised.”   

She became fascinated with the study of cancer – what occurs, and what goes wrong, at the cellular level.  She enrolled at Jamestown College, majoring in microbiology with a special interest in hematology, the study of blood.        

“I came across a book from UND and was flipping through it,” she says, when she noticed a section on cytotechnology.  Her reaction, “Oh my word!  I got chills.

“I hadn’t even heard of ‘cytotechnology’,” she says, but this was exactly what she wanted to pursue and in that defining moment she decided to go into this field.  Side effects of her cancer treatment, including a toxicity to one of the drugs, lasted quite a while.  She could only attend school part time.  

On a visit to UND, she met with the faculty, talked with students in the program, and “felt right at home

here,” she said.  “Kathy Hoffman and Kim Droog are excellent teachers.”

Now having completed her degree in cytotechnology, she says, the quality of the education “was excellent; there are no words to express it.  It’s one-on-one... I learn a lot better that way.

“If you have any questions they’re always there to help, especially because we’re such a small class.” 

Today, “when I see a slide, and see that it’s cancer, it’s not only the patient.  I see the mother, the father, the family, the children – everyone who will be affected by it.” 

She knows; she’s been there.

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