UK College of Nursing graduate turns cancer journey into advocacy

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 5, 2026) — Hannah Everett, a senior in the University of Kentucky College of Nursing, is no stranger to hospital walls after surviving cancer — but after surviving it twice, she is committed to using her nursing skills to serve patients facing the same uncertainty she once did.

That purpose came full-circle for Everett during her time in the Nursing Practice Internship course she chose to complete at the UK Golisano Children’s DanceBlue Hematology-Oncology Clinic, where they organized a bell-ringing ceremony for her. Surrounded by cheers and confetti, Everett marked the end of her most recent treatment about six months after finishing it — a milestone she never experienced as a patient.

The ceremony was organized by Natasha Welch, who goes by Meiko, a nurse in the DanceBlue Clinic who Everett was paired with on her first day. Welch learned about her cancer journey and how she never got the chance to participate in a bell-ringing ceremony. 

“It brought me to tears. It was one of the most special moments of my entire life,” Everett said.

Everett began showing unusual symptoms when she was 5-years-old and was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 13 in December 2017.

After three rounds of chemotherapy, she was determined to be cancer-free until symptoms returned her sophomore year of college, but it was a bit more extensive this time. She found out she had relapsed at age 19 in May 2024, the summer going into her junior year. Her swollen lymph nodes returned, and she began having pain in her legs.

“I really had to push for it and that’s when they determined that I had relapsed,” Everett said. “The second time around I was stage three.”

Her initial diagnosis showed cancer in the lymph nodes on the side of her neck and jaw, but this time it had spread to the lymph nodes on both sides of her jaw, armpit, chest and hip.

Everett received treatment at Norton Children’s Cancer Institute in Louisville, Kentucky, where her family lives. 

She did an initial three rounds of immunotherapy and chemotherapy combined over the summer before her junior year and second semester of nursing school. 

“I got my scans again a month later and they determined that I was in the clear, but I was still getting blood work and a lot of other appointments throughout that second semester of nursing school,” Everett said.

Welch ensured Everett’s battle and sacrifices did not go unrecognized, and as a result, Everett recognized her.

She ultimately nominated Welch for a The DAISY Award, an international recognition for nurses who go above and beyond, and Welch received the award.

During her time interning at the DanceBlue Clinic, Everett had already began balancing both a demanding nursing school schedule and recovering from treatment, she said she was often getting her blood work done at the Kentucky Clinic, going straight to class and sometimes forced to leave class as she was immunocompromised. 

She drew on formal resources like the Disability Resource Center and the support from faculty and her peers within the College of Nursing, but ultimately it was her own perseverance that carried her through.

“My professors were very, very accommodating… I was offered extra help… they made a huge difference,” Everett said.

Everett will be graduating this semester with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, but not just by the skin of her teeth, she also committed time to research. 

She, alongside BSN students Marissa Sautkas and Lara Kuglin, and her mentor on the project Morgan Chojnacki, D.N.P., delved into the relationship between quality of life and self-advocacy, and Everett was able to bring her personal experience to the table to present a resource for the DanceBlue Clinic to use for encouraging patients to speak up about their care.

After reviewing existing tools and research, Everett and her team found “The F-Words for Child Development,” created by CanChild, a nonprofit research and educational center within the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University.

The tool encourages a formal conversation with pediatric patients about their “functioning, family, fitness, fun” and more, which is logged in their chart. The research was presented and widely accepted by the medical team at the clinic. Everett, Sautkas and Kuglin also presented at the recent Center for Clinical and Translational Science Spring Conference.

Pediatric patients aren’t just the backbone of Everett’s research project; it’s also a glimpse into her future career.

A career-defining moment for her was the night before her first round of chemotherapy. She said she was absolutely petrified. 

“My nurse sat down on my bed and told me she had been a patient on the exact same floor,” Everett said.

Now, as Everett prepares to begin her career in nursing, those early experiences shape not only how she cares for patients, but the insight she hopes to pass on.

“Not necessarily worrying about the what ifs. What if this happens? What if that happens?” Everett said. “Because that’s not something that you can count on. And it’s way more important to focus on what’s concrete and what’s going well in the moment.”