Stephanie Angela King, MD

I love shopping. I collect handbags, jewelry, shoes, and luxury items, and I love high-end designers. It’s what you buy when you celebrate milestones. I have a YouTube channel—Dawn Loves Couture—and I use it to post unboxings and reviews of the items I buy. It’s like shopping with friends. But I had to put that all on hold when I was diagnosed with cancer.

In 2013, Alison Kovalchik learned she carried the BRCA1 mutation that increases the risk for developing breast cancer. Because she already had a number of other health issues, she was very worried about her options for preventive treatment. Upon the recommendation of her doctor, Alison sought answers from a specialist at Fox Chase Cancer Center, where she later had preventive surgery. She was assigned to a team of physicians from several different departments who all worked together to form an individualized treatment plan to ensure the best outcome. "Even though Fox Chase is a cancer center, its staff considers the patient as a whole person, which is something I hadn’t encountered elsewhere, and, to me, it is a true miracle," Alison said. "Fox Chase Cancer Center’s doctors worked as a team to treat me...I trust my team at Fox Chase. My doctors gave me my life back—in all ways, not only with the BRCA mutation risk. I know I’m in the best hands for my care."

Her gastroenterologist performed a PET scan which revealed a rare kind of cancer, a mucosal melanoma. “At that point, my urologist admitted 'this is beyond me. You need to go somewhere else',” she recalled.

"On October 29, 2012, I thought I had a bad case of the flu. I had slight pains on the right side and was really tired. I decided to go to the local hospital for a checkup and that’s when everything in my world started to change. I ended up with emergency surgery that day for an appendectomy. Afterwards my surgeon, Dr. Carlos Villarreal, and my best friend, Dr. Richard Bindie, told me that if I had waited a couple more hours I would have been dead. Dr.