As a child, I attended Camp Can Do (a camp for kids with cancer) for nine years, and have been a staff member for five years. I met a lot of campers who were actively going through treatment, and not all of these campers made it. When I was younger, these campers were my friends. Nowadays, these are the campers that I am responsible for. It is always difficult to lose a friend or a camper you have gotten to know. I have found it to be very important to lean on your support system when this happens. There are plenty of people, including campers, staff members, friends, and family, who are dealing with these same losses. Talking with others and keeping their memory alive is the most important thing. It has allowed me to work through my grief.

I learned just how deeply people can care for one another. We had and still have so much support from the people around us: family, friends, neighbors, the towns where she grew up, our church, and more. The way that people showed up for us shaped me for the better. It also taught me how to be there and support others who are going through a hard time.

We met so many great families at Ronald McDonald House and at the hospitals who were going through the exact same thing we were. We would talk, ask questions, compare experiences, and look forward to seeing each other at our next visits. We still keep in touch with some of these connections!

My family is my biggest support network. I didn’t have many survivor friends growing up, but made a friend when I got to college who was also an ALL survivor. It was one of the first times in my life I met someone like me, and we spent a lot of time discussing our cancer journeys. She had gone to a survivorship camp and had a lot more friends to talk about everything with. Now that I am working at a childhood cancer foundation, I’ve met a lot more people with similar experiences. It is so important to connect with other survivors.

I did try therapy with a few people! The therapist I really liked was only offered through the college I attended, so after graduation I could no longer use that resource. I tried a few others, but they just did not fit. I felt like they were trying to fix me, but my experience is not just something you can fix. My friends and family are extremely supportive and try so hard to understand, but they can’t. Knowing they still try is comforting, though. I have a friend I met at the children’s hospital through treatment that I talk to almost every week. That friendship has been a huge blessing for us both.