in 1996, when she was 4 years old, Catherine MacLean learned that she had Aplasia. For seven years, she lived a transfusion to another visit to the hospital to visit to the hospital. It was not until summer 2002 that his world suddenly included what was possible beyond the walls of his illness. She was 11.
For many years between, the disease controlled his life - Aplasia is a type of failure of the bone marrow which made it impossible to produce enough red blood cells in support of his body.
In 2001, Catherine spent three weeks in solitary confinement in a clinic so that she could get a bone marrow transplant. All visitors had to rub into the room, and her mother should wear a surgical mask if she was sleeping there.
When she returned to school, Catherine had maintained on the school plan, but the social environment in school makes for a difficult transition.
"I was certainly clearly aware that I was different from other children in my class, in many ways - in terms of maturity, take risks," Catherine told CNN.
"It is just this gap in experience, because I just did things and places that they simply do not have."
To help meet the other including children, Catherine doctors encouraged to go to a summer camp special for seriously ill children. The hole in the Wall Gang Camps were launched by actor Paul Newman "to recognize the chance;" the chance of it, the benevolence of it in my life and the brutality of it in the lives of others, is particularly savage for children because they may not authorized good fortune of a lifetime to correct the situation.
Catherine camp attended Ashford, Connecticut, is administered by the nurses, physicians and advisors of the cabin, and he is proud of giving kids, a place where they feel "safe, respected and loved."
For these children, suffering from diseases such as hemophilia, sickle cell anemia and cancer, it is a chance to see beyond the walls of the hospital for what the world might be like if a diagnosis is a not controlling their every action, clinics and hospital rooms were not as secondary residences.
Canton of Jimmy CEO has been with the camp since it began in 1988. He described as a place where children are encouraged to look beyond what they thought was possible: "they have been told repeatedly and repeatedly what they cannot do." And camp reminded them that there are lot of things they can do. ?
Nicole Kucine is a pediatric hematologist and oncologist who gets more training at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and has been volunteering in the camp for four years. Outside of the summer, she works closely with many sick children in hospitals and clinics. at the camp, she sees sick children in a different light.
This that she sees - children dancing around dining rooms, inviting, and insisting on the fact that she join in-is invigorating.
"Seeing kids so as to not to take account of their illness was incredible." They have to take a medication when they eat their meals, was not a big problem. They could be normal, "she told CNN."
"Normal" does was not something Catherine who know well in advance of the camp. The beginning of the camp has coincided with the first anniversary of its transplantation and its doctors began just to use the word "cure."
At the camp, Catherine was adopted by young advisers, eager to make his acquaintance. Many advisors were in College, which helped her to imagine what was for if long was intangible future.
"My kind of vision for my life has always been very limited, and he was always very well one day by day." It was like in a week, I must get an another transfusion blood and in a few months, we are going to change my medication and in a few months, we will gonna transplant, "she said on CNN.
The experience has enabled Catherine suggests, "there are things out there." I can set long-term objectives now. I can have long term goals. There are things that I will be able to.
Friends of his own camp always provide support and understanding today, when the "normal" life can get complicated. Explain the complexities of his illness might be difficult for a college freshman, trying to make new friends. But his friends camps can commiserate on routine checks and the results of trials that any explanation.
The camp also modifies the way children interact with the authority figures. In hospitals, there are always of many guards often things to sick children who are uncomfortable, as the drawing of blood or give them drugs.
Events such as the "silly Olympics", the camp puts kids back in the driver's seat. Correctly answering trivia questions win campers the right to launch a spoonful of pudding in the face of their adviser or an adviser to spraying with a Super Soaker, or perhaps make lemonade mix into the mouth of the Advisor.
"Silly Olympics is, here is the figure of this authority, but you are allowed to run pudding on them, you are allowed to strike back, you are allowed to type to take control of the situation in a way that many of these children get control over their bodies and their lives just completely removed". "to their" said Catherine.
At the hospital, you're a patient, that's all, you are; in many ways, you are your disease. Here, you get up on stage and you are a singer or you are a craftsman in wood shop or you are a fisherman, you get to try different things and so you can take back a sense of "I like to fish."I am good at celaJ have discovered this talent, "she told CNN."
This year, when Catherine ends up to the first year of College, she welcomes many possibilities, such as medical research and graduate studies. But she said that the camp has also opened his eyes to the social aspect of medicine, and she plans to enter the public health or seeking a job that supports patients.
But for the moment, it is all excited on his summer job. It will be back at the camp who has changed his life, but this time as an advisor.
Thousands of very sick children around the world, summer camp is not only a place to escape from the parents and make new friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment