Cancer has taken so much from me. 

I will never forget the feeling of holding my mom’s hand in hospice as she took her last breath. Asking my Dad “is she gone?” Tears rolled down his face as he said “yes.”

I’ll never forget the sound of bagpipes in the cemetery as we laid my mom to rest. Confused why my Dad needed his name on the grave as well. It felt like it was foreshadowing my future.

I’ll never forget sitting at the University of Chicago after months of misdiagnosis hearing a pancreatic cancer diagnosis and my Dad and I acknowledging we already knew, the feeling in our guts couldn’t be ignored. I had cancer.

I’ll never forget returning from vacation with a family friend to my sister in our driveway. The second I saw her, I immediately thought my Dad was gone, and I felt relief to find out he was in the hospital and still alive, for now.

Cancer damaged me, damaged me beyond repair at times. It broke me. It stripped me of  the moments I yearn for to this day. 

Cancer snuck up on me and defined me. But, it also became something I didn’t expect. Beautiful.

I quickly learned for many of us the treatment for cancer was worse than the disease. Spending days on end being hooked up to chemotherapy that couldn’t be exposed to light. Every poke, every shot, every hospital stay chipped away at me.

I reached a point where I didn’t want to do treatment anymore. I was 14, we had just lost my mom to cancer and I had a hard time believing I had a chance at surviving.

My nurse and doctor begged my Dad and I to try one thing before we had any more conversations about quitting treatment. 

There was a camp for kids with cancer in Lake Geneva, WI and they wanted me to go.

I didn’t want to go. I thought it sounded awful. What was I going to do at a cancer camp? Bedazzle a puke bucket? 

My Dad made me go and the rest is history.

Camp One Step saved my life.

I saw cancer survivors for the first time. Kids who were just like me swimming, fishing, laughing - things I never thought I would experience again.

I was home at Camp, and I finished treatment because of the magic that exists there.

Doctors can have all the treatments in the world but, you have to want to fight. Camp was medicine for my soul. It reminded me life was worth living. And the community was priceless, my second family.

So here we are. I’m going to run 26.2 miles in October in the Chicago Marathon.

The running part? That isn’t the important part for me. I’m running to make sure more kids with cancer will find their second home at Camp One Step. Because camp saved my life.

My goal is to raise $20,000 for Camp One Step.