Although clichés are passé, omnia vincit amor – love conquers all – is highly appropriate in describing the longtime relationship between third-year Vanderbilt medical student Sarah Proffitt and her boyfriend, Amos Clark.
Proffitt and Clark grew up in the small town of Athens in East Tennessee where almost everyone knows everybody. These two were no exception.
Friends since middle school, the pair began dating their freshman year of high school. She attended their hometown high school, while he ventured to McCallie High School in nearby Chattanooga. The relationship continued when Proffitt came to Vanderbilt University as an undergraduate, while Clark attended the University of the South (Sewanee).
Everything was standard textbook romance until the fall of 2006 as the pair entered their sophomore year of college. On Proffitt’s first day of classes she received gut-wrenching news – Clark was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML). He required immediate treatment. His future was uncertain.
