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The summer months were in full swing in August but my 16-year-old body was more like an 80-year-old woman’s in a nursing home. Only a few short months ago, I was a three-sport athlete. I was playing three back-to-back basketball games in the morning, and by evening I was playing shortstop in a doubleheader softball game. Then, cancer came and it arrived with a vengeance. …
The passing of time is a gift. I have found time cannot be grasped nor exchanged like currency but nine years after my cancer treatments concluded time has transformed, healed and redeemed my treasured life. With each passing cancer-free anniversary I add another year to the list titled, “Years-since-I-was-a-teenager-with-cancer.” I did not even realize it was my “cancer-free day” until after dinner this past year. …
I went to that place once. For just a moment, I thought about what could have been, and I almost lost every spark of joy I had left. Despair almost won.
Connor was only 6 weeks old when he survived an emergency brain surgery. It was in the hours of that life-changing surgery that I learned to live in each literal second. I couldn’t think about anything other than if he was still alive. I couldn’t look anywhere else than at the door to the waiting room where a nurse would emerge every 30 minutes or …
Mariah was diagnosed with osteosarcoma when she was 2 years old. After undergoing hospitalizations, painful treatment and amputation surgery, Mariah is now cancer free and a senior at the University of Minnesota. She is making an impact for other kids with cancer by not only raising awareness, but also working in Dr. Lund’s Pediatric BMT research lab and Dr. Laragespada’s cancer research lab. I …
Osteosarcoma is so overwhelmingly good at overcoming current treatments that it may just take a rocket scientist to help defeat it. Theresa Beech is exactly that space engineer who is making progress toward understanding the genetics behind the relapsed form of the deadly disease. And as the mom of Daniel, who died of osteosarcoma when he was 13, perhaps no one is as familiar with …
After surviving two cancers and a bone marrow transplant (BMT), it was finally time to start school at the University of Minnesota. I worked so hard to graduate with my high school class, just to have to defer college and start a year late. At first, I felt behind in life so my mom suggested that I rush a sorority. I felt optimistic and put …
Two-year-old Joey arrived at the coffee shop fast asleep and nestled against his mom, Ames, when we first met them. Tiny hearing aids poked through tufts of his blonde hair, and plastic leg braces wrapped around his legs under his Ninja Turtle sweatpants. His sister, Nancy, whom he called “Joey’s baby,” sat in her stroller, wide-eyed and content. Between speech therapy, CT scans, clinic visits, …
My name is Dexter. Everyone calls me Dex. I am 10 years old, and I have terminal neuroblastoma. When we found out the cancer was back, I sat down with my friends and family, and we came up with a list of things I want to do before I die. My parents want to make a life time of memories, and my brother wants to …
Rallying families to share their children’s stories isn’t easy, because I ask them to open doors to the most intense pain. I share with them how I became involved in the world of childhood cancer. I let them know that my son survived brain cancer, even if their children haven’t survived their diagnoses. I share how they can be a catalyst to move research forward, …
From going to the Little League World Series to heading to soccer practice, Justin Cowen had an insatiable love of sports. You’d often find him smiling brightly and wearing jerseys from his favorite teams including the New York Mets, the Everton FC and the Anaheim Ducks. He dreamt of being a sports reporter, covering everything from soccer to ice hockey. But just before Justin’s twelfth …
Eight years ago, on a cold and dreary November day, Rob and I picked Zach up from school to take him to our local hospital for an MRI. We wanted to find out why he was still having pain in his left hip after two months of physical therapy. We thought it was likely something simple, like a torn hip flexor. But it wasn’t simple. It was a tumor.
I’ll never forget the day a social worker sat with me in my living room and told me that it was normal to want my brother to die. My younger siblings and I had spent countless nights talking about one thing: how we wished my brother’s excruciating pain from cancer would be over, so things could just get better. So we could get better. It …
The Fourth of July 2011 is etched in my memory as the last “normal” family holiday we ever had. I was about to start my senior year of college. It was a gorgeous holiday at the lake full of sun, fishing and annual traditions. Worries were few and were small in magnitude. The future was bright. My middle sister was about to head down to …
California When we say “against all odds”, what do we really mean? Does it mean that we defeated a concept? Won a battle against some well-studied mathematical perimeters and statistics? That we were part of an unexpected miracle (if you are like me and still believe in miracles)? Or, all the above? Lately, the idea of numbers and statistics has been surfacing in my life …
This speech was originally presented by Mariah at Time to Fly on September 9, 2017. Thank you all for coming out today. It is really special to be with you to be part of Children’s Cancer Research Fund’s 15th Time to Fly. I can still remember the first one. My name is Mariah, and I am honored to share my story with you, as each …
