Alex's Lemonade Cancer Symposium

This past Saturday, I attended Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation's 3rd Annual Cancer Symposium. This was my second time going to this event, and it's grown tremendously already. This event is made up of a series of informative talks and discussions about childhood cancer. It is held at a hotel, and is filled with different sessions spanning across the whole day. You can pick and choose which to go to, and at the end of the night, they also hold a dinner and dance for the attendees - all free of charge.
Last year my mom and I went mostly to see what it was about, and because of my personal tie to Alex's Lemonade Stand. We enjoyed it, but found that it didn't have a lot of sessions that appealed to me or others in my situation; namely, that of teens/young adults with cancer, or with long-term patients. Most sessions were aimed at very young patients, or newly diagnosed patients, or survivors. I don't fall into any of those categories. There were two sessions we attended last year that we enjoyed - one was an overall look at childhood cancer (my mom and I learned a lot from this!), while the other was a fundraising talk. They were done well, but it was a shame that, out of a full day of sessions, these were the only two that I felt had any relevance to me.
After that first event, I was talking with one of the organizers. She asked if my mom and I had any feedback about it, so we told her that, while we were happy with the ones we went to, we felt like there could have been much more. We ended up talking with this organizer for over an hour, as she was very interested in hearing what kinds of events and discussions we would like to see. So, we were very excited when we got the schedule for this year's Symposium and saw that it included a ton of the suggestions we had made! There was a whole separate schedule for adolescents/young adult patients, known as AYA patients. There were also round-table discussions for just the parents, and just the AYA group. There were crafts and art therapy. There were little kid sessions. There was pet therapy. There was a session on alternative pain therapies such as massage. It was fantastic.
We got there early enough to catch the end of their breakfast, and then we listened to the inspirational speaker. She was 25 and had been diagnosed at 19, and was now involved with a Childhood Cancer committee. When she was done, my mom and I went off to our separate parent/AYA sessions and didn't see each other again until lunch. My first two sessions were given by the same woman, someone from Virginia who had worked as a teacher for a long time until she got involved with helping AYAs with cancer as an Educational Consultant at VCU Medical Center. Her sessions were Coping with Cancer and Transition: High School to College and Beyond. At first, it was just me and one other 15-year-old girl in this session. I was a little worried it would be awkward, but we ended up being able to talk very easily and openly - perhaps because it was so small. It did feel good to talk to another patient, even though we had completely different experiences and I didn't necessarily feel like I needed these particular sessions much; I somehow never had a hard time coping, and I had already gone through the transition of middle school to homecare to high school to college. Of course, in my case, that could have gone better, but I had done all I could and all that anyone could do, and just found that, at least for now, it was not the right option for me. But I picked up a few good tips, and I felt like I was at least a little bit of a help to the other girl. I hope so. Later on, a few other AYA patients joined us, and throughout the later sessions, there were maybe 7 of us who would go along to them all. Sometimes one patient might choose to skip a session, but by the end of the day, I felt like I knew all of them pretty well, and that made the day worth it for sure. We had one session that was just a round-table discussion, where we felt free to talk about anything. It was really interesting. The inspirational speaker from earlier on was there, and I found we had a lot of the same views on things now, even though we, too, had completely different experiences. Another girl was the sibling of a young boy with cancer, and I really enjoyed her take on things, since I'm not always sure how my brothers have felt. There was one 13 year old boy in our group, and I was worried he'd be uncomfortable talking with a group of older girls, but he surprised me by jumping right into our conversations and participating in everything. It just showed me how much of an effect cancer has had on us all in terms of our comfort levels and our confidence. Not once did I feel uncomfortable sharing anything with any of them, nor did I ever get the feeling that any of them felt that way. It was a great experience. Even though I've been doing this for 8 years, I really haven't had many opportunities to talk with others close to my age, so this was really exciting to me. I've exchanged emails and contact info with a few of the others, and I plan on writing them again.
I'm amazed at how much Alex's Lemonade Stand did to put this event together, and so much was added to it this year that wasn't there last year. I'm excited to see what they'll put together for the next Symposium!