At UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital at Mission Bay, an extraordinary meeting of super heroes took place where the sky was the limit. On Friday, specialists with the UC Space Health Program convened a symposium with NASA Ames Research Center based in Mountain View and the Johnson Space Center to explore ways to collaborate on accelerating cancer care and research. But in the auditorium, astronauts Kenneth Cockrell and Yvonne Cagle met with families touched by the disease.
"We have patients here who are on hard journeys. And then we have astronauts who have done some challenging journeys themselves, and they're sharing stories and helping each other," explained Dr. Aenor Sawyer who is the UC Space Health Director at UCSF.
Cagle is also a medical doctor. She told CBS News Bay Area how astronauts and patients share a similar journey. "What we do to prepare and how we, not just survive but sustain and even thrive in space, is not unlike the journey that individuals going through these kinds of treatments," noted Cagle.
Cockrell, who is nicknamed "Taco" and is also retired, is a veteran of five space flights. He is also a patient. "I'm hoping to be inspirational to some young patients and I think that I can bring something else to the table because I also have cancer," he said.
Some patients could not go to the auditorium since they were undergoing treatment. So the astronauts visited them in their rooms. Jackson Nystrom is fighting round cell sarcoma and will soon celebrate this 2.