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Adam Mark Hyman after completing a 2014 race (Courtesy of the Hyman family)<\/p>\n Adam Mark Hyman after completing a 2014 race (Courtesy of the Hyman family)<\/p>\n
Adam Marc Hyman spent most of his life confronting medical crises that would have sidelined almost anyone else. Instead, he used those challenges to build a career caring for children facing the same fears he knew firsthand.<\/p>\n
Hyman, a longtime pediatric oncology nurse at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, died on Nov. 24 in Souderton. He was 52.<\/p>\n
To colleagues and families at CHOP, Hyman was known not for what he endured, but for what he brought into exam rooms and hallways: candor, steadiness and a sense of humor that could cut through the tension of even the most difficult days. When his health challenges precluded working 12-hour shifts, he became a nurse navigator \u2014 first in oncology and later in gastroenterology. He coordinated care for young patients, explained treatment plans and gave parents a single, trusted point of contact in a complex medical system.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the one person the families could talk to,\u201d said Michael Grossman, a former CHOP nursing director who hired him in 2000. \u201cHe organized everything and made sure they understood what was happening. He was perfect at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former patients and parents echoed that in online tributes. One young adult, treated at CHOP as a teenager, said Hyman \u201chelped me find a sense of normalcy when I felt out of place,\u201d and continued checking on him years after treatment. A mother wrote that he made her son\u2019s long hospital stays easier, adding that he \u201cwas for sure an angel from heaven to care for all these sick children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hyman built equally strong ties with colleagues, who said he blended sharp, dry humor with deep loyalty. He often referred to himself simply as \u201cAH,\u201d speaking in the third person when making a joke. \u201cHe always had a snarky remark,\u201d said his sister, Shari Gold. \u201cHe let you know exactly where he stood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born on Aug. 9, 1973, in Philadelphia, Hyman grew up in Northeast Philly, where he was, in Gold\u2019s words, \u201ca tough kid from the time he could talk.\u201d She recalled him climbing appliances at age 2, breaking his arm on a Big Wheel at 4, and insisting on swimming at camp with a fresh cast the next day. He played basketball at the Klein Branch Jewish Community Center (now KleinLife) and developed friendships that lasted decades.<\/p>\n
A medical emergency in high school ended his basketball days, but running soon became his foundation. It was the one physical space he controlled, no matter the obstacles in his life. He ran marathons in Boston, Hawaii and at Disney, trained with the Wynnefield Track Club, and logged countless early-morning miles through Center City.<\/p>\n
He often stopped to chat with TV crews setting up for early morning broadcasts. He befriended sports reporters the same way he befriended fellow runners \u2014 by showing up, by engaging people, and by having opinions about everything from the Eagles\u2019 chances to the best cheesesteak in town.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe loved sports, food, restaurants \u2014 and he had strong opinions on all of it,\u201d Grossman said. \u201cWe were experts in put-down humor.\u201d<\/p>\n
In recent years, he found a second family in Ross and Alyssa Iliescu. He and Ross had been friends since their middle-school days, and the couple later drew him into their home and routines. \u201cHe became like my second husband and a brother,\u201d Alyssa Iliescu said. They brought him to Florida, included him in holiday dinners, and spent summers with him in the seaside town of Margate. \u201cHe lived life day-to-day and always lived it to the fullest,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
His path toward nursing began at Beaver College, now Arcadia University. He went on to earn his degree at Frankford Hospital School of Nursing. His own childhood care at CHOP inspired him to return as a nurse. \u201cHe went into nursing because of what he experienced,\u201d Gold said.<\/p>\n
Families sensed that connection immediately. He did not sugarcoat, but he reassured. He understood the fear of not knowing what comes next. \u201cHe knew what parents were going through, what kids were going through,\u201d Grossman said. \u201cThat made him extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only later in conversations did Hyman\u2019s sister and close friends describe the medical challenges he faced quietly. At 11, he was diagnosed with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, a rare gastroenterological condition that began a lifetime of complications. He was ill at the time of his bar mitzvah and had to be tutored at home. But he rarely talked about the pain.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople didn\u2019t realize how much pain he was in,\u201d Gold said. \u201cHe\u2019d just say, \u2018I\u2019m OK,\u2019 even when he wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2018, childhood friend Mike Green donated a kidney, a gift that allowed Hyman to return to running and to work. \u201cIt was the gift of life,\u201d Gold said. When that kidney eventually began to fail, he tried dialysis without improvement. Doctors later declined him for a second transplant, and in early November he chose to discontinue treatment.<\/p>\n
The decision reflected a principle he had long articulated: quality over quantity. Running, eating well, debating sports, connecting with patients and friends \u2014 these were the things that defined his life. \u201cHealth is wealth,\u201d Iliescu said he often told her.<\/p>\n
Though Hyman questioned religion from a young age \u2014 \u201cIf there\u2019s a God, why did he make me sick?\u201d he once asked \u2014 he embraced one value consistently: treat others the way you want to be treated. Gold said that guided him with patients, families, colleagues and the many friends he collected across Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
His approach to life, Grossman said, mirrored a graduation speech Hyman once gave at his alma mater George Washington High School. He spoke about feeling \u201cinvincible.\u201d He described pushing himself out the door in any weather to run \u2014 not because he had to, but because it made him feel alive and capable. \u201cFor the moment, I feel invincible,\u201d he told students. \u201cIt\u2019s just me versus the elements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grossman said that spirit outlasts the physical limits Hyman lived with. \u201cHis physical body wasn\u2019t invincible \u2014 nobody\u2019s is,\u201d he said. \u201cBut his spirit was. And it will live on as long as we keep telling stories about him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellen Braunstein is a freelance writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adam Mark Hyman after completing a 2014 race (Courtesy of the Hyman family) Adam Marc Hyman spent most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[182,139,3026,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-61866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-local-news","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-obituaries","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","13":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}