In May 2007, as a student at Fort Hays State University in her hometown of Hays, Kan., she visited the student health center with cold symptoms. During the routine exam, a student training to become a doctor found a suspicious-looking mole on the side of Hill's neck. She suggested Hill see a dermatologist, which she then did. The dermatologist removed the mole and determined that it was melanoma.
Melanoma patient Audi Hill

Hill traveled to Kansas City, four hours away, where clinicians performed a neck dissection, removing lymph nodes and surrounding tissue to see if the melanoma had spread. It had. With at least one sentinel node positive, Hill underwent interferon treatment in Kansas City for a year.

The cancer continued to spread. By June 2008, a tumor the size of a cantaloupe had developed in her abdomen and wrapped around one of her ovaries. While physicians removed the tumor and one of her ovaries and continued to suggest further surgeries, Hill's father was reading about the promise of T-cell therapy. After doctors found that the cancer had spread to her ribs, adrenal glands, duodenum, pelvis and two spots on her back, her father suggested she make a trip to M. D. Anderson.

Traveling to M. D. Anderson required a five-hour drive to Denver and a 2½-hour flight to Houston.

"When we arrived, I was overwhelmed at first. I come from a town of about 1,000 people. M. D. Anderson is huge," she said.

Her oncologist, Nicholas Papadopoulos, M.D., professor in the Department of Melanoma Medical Oncology, soon put her at ease. Hill learned that she qualified for a study called "lymphodepletion plus adoptive cell transfer." By harvesting her own immune system's T cells, growing them in mass quantity and then re-infusing them into her body, Papadopoulos hoped to have Hill's own immune system fight the cancer cells itself. Exactly what her father had read.

The tumor from Hill's pelvis was removed in October 2008, and the T cells were grown from it. While the cells were being grown, she underwent additional chemotherapy.

By November, her T cells had grown to 115 billion, more than enough for infusion. She was ready to begin treatment. Almost immediately, her tumors began to shrink.

After six trips to Houston, during which she received one infusion of T cells, followed by 13 infusions of high-dose interleukin-2, she has seen dramatic changes. Both tumors on her back, one the size of a fist, are completely gone. Only a few small tumors remain, and they too are shrinking.

Hill was able to finish college during her treatment, and she continues to come back to M. D. Anderson for scans every two to three months.

When asked how she feels now, Hill says, "I feel awesome. And, to top it off, I am almost four months pregnant."

Hill and her husband, Matt, found out they were expecting a baby after she finished her treatment.

The Hill baby is due to arrive on Thanksgiving Day.