Carly started her freshman year of college in the Fall of 2017 and after 3 months her symptoms started showing. The headaches, bruising and shortness of breath demanded attention. She would get so winded climbing a flight of stairs that she held onto her knees and gasped for air. At night in bed, she could barely sleep because of the pain in her head. While everyone else was sleeping, she would think about how strange that was. In February of 2018, after a bone marrow aspirate, she was diagnosed with a form of blood cancer called acute myeloid leukemia. That was on a Thursday and by Monday, she was at St. Jude, which she describes as “a sort of surreal and slightly magical place where you never feel weird about being in slippers every day or feel like you have to hide your cancer. Everyone is nice and so accommodating and accepting.” She began a treatment plan of six months of intense chemotherapy. This was the AML-16 Clinical Trial that was funded by LLS. For a long time, it was too painful for her to stand upright, which made it impossible for her to do something she loves to do - cook. And the chemo changed her sense of taste. “I even hated water during treatment, I could smell it for some reason. It tasted like sulfur and it smelled rotten.” Instead of cooking, she made friends. She carried around stickers and gave them out to the little kids. She bonded with a few of the other teens and a few of the moms. She especially loved a little girl named Hadley who had the same diagnosis, and she brought her stickers and small toys. Carly and her mom lived at Target House, a patient housing facility at St. Jude. “As a South Dakotan, I didn’t go outside too much that summer because of the Memphis heat, but my room faced the courtyard. I loved it. The courtyard looked down on the playground. It was like paradise for kids with cancer. Nobody ever felt shamed or excluded, and the kids would be out playing like there was nothing wrong.” One day, when the LP headaches subsided and she could stand up long enough, she made a lemon chicken dish for her cousin who came to visit – her first foray back into cooking. “It was just a simple thing – chicken, lemon, olive oil, butter. Easy. But it was a great moment for me” She said, “It was a small claim back to normalcy for me”. Carly completed treatment in August 2018. She continues to attend USF, studying economics and marketing.Carly started her freshman year of college in the fall of 2017 and after 3 months her symptoms started showing. The headaches, bruising and shortness of breath demanded attention. She would get so winded climbing a flight of stairs that she held onto her knees and gasped for air. At night in bed, she could barely sleep because of the pain in her head. While everyone else was sleeping, she would think about how strange that was. In February of 2018, after a bone marrow aspirate, she was diagnosed with a form of blood cancer called acute myeloid leukemia. That was on a Thursday and by Monday, she was at St. Jude, which she describes as “a sort of surreal and slightly magical place where you never feel weird about being in slippers every day or feel like you have to hide your cancer. Everyone is nice and so accommodating and accepting.” She began a treatment plan of six months of intense chemotherapy. This was the AML-16 Clinical Trial that was funded by LLS. For a long time, it was too painful for her to stand upright, which made it impossible for her to do something she loves to do - cook. And the chemo changed her sense of taste. “I even hated water during treatment, I could smell it for some reason. It tasted like sulfur and it smelled rotten.” Instead of cooking, she made friends. She carried around stickers and gave them out to the little kids. She bonded with a few of the other teens and a few of the moms. She especially loved a little girl named Hadley who had the same diagnosis, and she brought her stickers and small toys. Carly and her mom lived at Target House, a patient housing facility at St. Jude. “As a South Dakotan, I didn’t go outside too much that summer because of the Memphis heat, but my room faced the courtyard. I loved it. The courtyard looked down on the playground. It was like paradise for kids with cancer. Nobody ever felt shamed or excluded, and the kids would be out playing like there was nothing wrong.” One day, when the LP headaches subsided and she could stand up long enough, she made a lemon chicken dish for her cousin who came to visit – her first foray back into cooking. “It was just a simple thing – chicken, lemon, olive oil, butter. Easy. But it was a great moment for me” She said, “It was a small claim back to normalcy for me”. Carly completed treatment in August 2018. She continues to attend USF, studying economics and marketing.