Dear Childhood Cancer Survivors,
As Childhood Cancer Survivorship Month is drawing to a close, the Coalition Against Childhood Cancer (CAC2) extends our gratitude to each of you. We honor your strength, resilience, and the significant impacts you have made within the pediatric cancer community. While some survivors have few or mild effects from their cancer treatment, others exemplify the ability to overcome tough challenges along their pediatric cancer survivorship journey. While your varied experiences highlight successes, they also bring attention to the ongoing difficulties that a childhood cancer diagnosis can bring.
We recognize that surviving childhood cancer is a lifelong journey marked by unique challenges. You may face a variety of late effects that affect your physical well-being even years after being declared NED. These effects may be subtle but can be significantly more challenging and require ongoing medical care and management. Your determination to lead full and meaningful lives inspires us at CAC2 to do the work we do.
You also carry the emotional and psychosocial impact of your early experiences post-diagnosis and throughout treatment. Your memories of hospital stays, treatments, and uncertainty about the future can have long-lasting consequences, including PTSD. Yet, many of you have developed profound resilience and a unique appreciation for life. Likewise, many of you view these experiences as powerful forces for good, becoming advocates, mentors, and sources of hope for others.
Thank you for your contributions to the childhood cancer community and survivors like you:
- Your Advocacy: Your voices are powerful tools for change. When you share your stories, you also share the realities of pediatric cancer. This helps raise awareness, drive research, and secure support. We are grateful for your efforts to educate and inform others.
- Your Mentorship: You offer guidance to those along their cancer journey. Having faced similar struggles, your experiences provide hope and direction to newly diagnosed children and their families. The connections you develop bring comfort and courage. CAC2 appreciates and respects the importance of your role as a mentor.
- Your Volunteering: Your compassion shines through in every act of kindness, and your selflessness creates a positive impact. We genuinely appreciate and recognize the practical support you provide to those still in treatment and others along their survivorship journey through your volunteer efforts.
- Your Support Groups: You create safe spaces where others feel understood and validated. You allow fears to be voiced and successes celebrated. We are thankful for the strong bonds formed within these communities.
- Your Contributions to Research: You play a vital role in the future of pediatric cancer care. You advocate for increased research funding and participate in clinical trials. This brings us closer to a future without childhood cancer, which is invaluable!
- Your Educational Initiatives: You educate others by sharing your powerful stories. Your experiences help inform, inspire, and showcase the profound impact of personal narratives.
This June and throughout the year, we honor you, our pediatric cancer survivors—not just for what you’ve overcome but for how you continue to live, inspire, and lead. Your resilience and hope strengthen our entire community. Thank you for everything you do.
If you are seeking information and resources that help pediatric cancer survivors, please consider exploring:
- The Coalition Against Childhood Cancer (CAC2) Survivorship Toolkit: This toolkit provides educational resources for childhood cancer survivors and their families, offering the information they need to navigate survivorship and enhance their quality of life.
- The Childhood Cancer Hub’s Better Together: Survivorship Connection Directory lists organizations that offer survivorship programs, services, and assistance, enabling survivors and their families to find targeted support more quickly and easily than ever before.
