Twyman Clements of Bardstown had just graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2009. He was beginning to plan the next steps in his career when a regular physical for his Type I diabetes changed his world.
At age 22, Twyman was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer which they’d worried had metastasized. Doctors told him that if they hadn’t caught it, he would have been dead before the end of the year.
Immediately, he began treatment at Flaget Memorial Hospital. The cancer center had not yet been built, so he took his chemotherapy inside the main hospital.
“I was thinking I was going to die,” said Twyman, who is now CEO, President and Co-Founder of Space Tango, a Lexington-based company which manufactures high value products in microgravity via the International Space Station.
When you’re wrestling with life and death, Twyman said, you don’t want to have to worry about incremental stresses like traveling away from home.
Having the comfort of being in Bardstown, where his mom knew the nurses and the drive home was 15 minutes at most was a relief, he said.
For more inspiring stories of hope or to learn more about Project Hope and how you can get involved, visit Flaget Memorial Hospital Foundation.