Cancer Survivor Creates Wall of Hope to Inspire Others

When doctors delivered a dire stage IV lung cancer diagnosis to Paul Seyferth in January 2020, he mustered his courage, dove into treatment and decided that he was going to live.

At The University of Kansas Cancer Center, he saw others like him, he says, who had “run the gauntlet” of a grim cancer diagnosis and survived. “I thought, if they can do it, then maybe I can do it, too.”

Paul says it’s important for all cancer patients to see and hear from cancer survivors, to lift their spirits as they navigate treatment and offer hope. That’s why he felt the need to create a Wall of Hope at The University of Kansas Cancer Center locations throughout the metro.

“No one ever expects to be diagnosed with cancer, no one prepares for it,” says Paul, 61, who also received a prostate cancer diagnosis in summer 2022. “My hope is that people who are waiting at the cancer center - whether to see their physician, receive chemo or review scans - see that other people can do this and say, ‘Hey, I want to be one of those people, the ones who run this gauntlet and make it to the other side.’”

The Wall of Hope features photos of cancer center patients of various ages and ethnicities with diverse cancer types, treatments and staging.