Pearland resident dedicates her life to battling cancer

PEARLAND, TX -- Pearland resident Grace L. Butler, PhD has done a lot of positive things in her life. She was the first African American to be promoted to full professor at Texas A&M University, the first African American to hold the position of Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs at University of Houston (UH) and was most recently Professor Emeritus at UH.

That all changed in 1999, when Butler was 60 years old. She experienced sudden, unbearable pain in her side. She went to the hospital, and two days later received a diagnosis of stage III colon cancer. She never went back to her office at UH.

Being a life-long learner, Butler immediately started researching the disease.

"I had an insatiable appetite. I needed to know what was going on, what was happening to me, what was available, and how I should be treated," said Butler. "I was tantamount to a person who is drowning. I was going down for the third time and American Cancer Society was the lifeline that provided a wealth of information about the disease and its treatment."

Read more from the Pearland Journal, a Houston Community Newspaper partner