camp with cancer kids:



Teen Impact, the program at CHLA that I'm working for this year is amazing! I just spent three days in Lake Arrowhead having a great time with some great teens! We watched movies, shared meals, and shared fun activities, like swimming at the pool (complete with waterslides), horseback riding, boating in kayaks and canoes on a small lake, and climbing the indoor rock wall! Somehow in there we also managed to develop stronger bonds and do some therapeutic psychosocial activities (like painting sticks to represent good and bad parts of ourselves and then burning the bad sticks).

It was an interesting weekend of pushing therapeutic boundaries that I have grown accustomed to at my school. I shared my goofiness, my serious side, and sometimes just listened to the stories of teens who have seen way too much of the horrible side of life way too early.

I think my favorite part of the whole weekend was having dinner with a group of guys, all of whom had no hair except for one, and he had just recently begun to grow his back following the completion of his chemotherapy. It was so neat to be let into their world and see how something so small as losing your hair could be one of the hardest parts of having childhood cancer. It really makes me appreciate what I do have and makes the little things not seem to matter as much in perspective.

sucks!