Sam’s StoryWritten by: Shari Lindars

Illustrated by: Maggie and Reese Lindars

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Sam. He liked to dig and smash and build things, and he always played with his Blue Dinosaur.

While Sam was having fun, there were some bad guys called cancer cells growing in his body. Nobody knew they were there while he was playing. Nobody knows how they got there, not even the doctors. It wasn’t Sam’s fault. Sam’s a good guy.

One day, Sam had a bad tummy ache and his body felt sick. The doctors checked and found the cancer cells hiding in Sam’s kidney. They were in a big group called a tumor. The doctors called it a Wilms Tumor.

Right away, the doctors had to cut Sam open to take those bad guys out.

Sam had to stay in the hospital for a long time while his body got stronger and started to feel better.

Sam’s doctors and his Mommy and Daddy knew there might still be more cancer cells in his body. They talked about ways to get rid of those bad guys.

One way the doctors could help was called rads. Sam had to lie on a table and stay very still while a machine shot invisible beams into Sam’s body to catch the cancer cells. This didn’t hurt Sam at all but sometimes he felt funny afterwards.

Another way to get rid of the cancer cells was for Sam to take a kind of medicine called chemo. Sam got a special port that was like a tunnel in his chest that could let the chemo into his body. Every week, the chemo medicine worked on making the bad guys go away forever.

For a few days after getting the chemo medicine, Sam felt tired and a little bit sick. He could watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Little Einsteins while he rested.

The silly thing about the chemo medicine was that it also made Sam’s hair go away. Sometimes, Sam wanted to wear orange hats to cover his head, but sometimes he liked to be bald. Sam’s hair is much stronger and healthier than the cancer cells, so his hair will grow back quickly after the Sam gets all of his chemo.

By the time Sam turned four, he was almost done with his treatment and the bad guy cancer cells were all gone. Sam, Jason, Zoey, Mommy and Daddy lived happily ever after.

About the authors:

Maggie and Reese’s Mommy had cancer when Reese was 3 and Maggie was 4. Miss Shari liked to be bald, and Maggie and Reese will always love her no matter what.