"What better way to bring dark humor into a situation than to have a 4-year-old with the same diagnosis, IV pole of chemo trailing behind her, running in a room to douse the physician with water," Mullen says.
At home Evans keeps a framed drawing by Mullen alongside a photo collage featuring hundreds of her patients from over the decades.
She remembers them all. Evans always tried to be there at the end when all treatments failed.
"I have learned, because I have done it so often. I have learned to be able to talk about what dying is like and it depends entirely on the age of the child," she says. "One of the best things you can do is to be there and to share."
About five years ago, she stopped taking new patients and cut back her work hours. But she was still there all day.
And at 80 she quietly got married to University of Pennsylvania radiation oncologist Giulio "Dan" D'Angio, a widower. In the 1950s, they began a lifelong research partnership in Boston. Evans is godmother to D'Angio's children and, because his first wife didn't like to travel, she took them on trips around the world.
When she finally decided it was time to retire, she tried to slip out.
"I couldn't stand the emotion . . . people would be crying for Pete's sake," Evans says. "I just felt it was too much, I would rather just be gone."
But D'Angio told her she wasn't thinking of others and persuaded her to return to Children's Hospital to be feted by the cancer community she had committed her life to.
She was given the "Pitcher of Hope Award" by Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation.
Still, she shook her head vigorously as oncologist Maris said they would give her a proper send-off in the fall when her portrait will be hung among the luminaries in Stokes Auditorium - the first woman to be so honored.
Oncologist Brodeur still hopes to entice Evans back to his lab, where her seat stayed empty for months after her retirement.
Brodeur has started a new line of neuroblastoma research - using tiny nanoparticles to target tumor cells with high doses of chemotherapy.
Evans fears being drawn back. She no longer wants to be consumed by it.
But the new project intrigues her. "It would be terribly exciting," she says.
She may have cleaned out her office but in many ways Evans is still there.
Contact staff writer Josh Goldstein at 215-854-4733 or jgoldstein@phillynews.com.
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