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Samantha (“Sam”) was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia when she was 17, in her last semester of high school and just a couple weeks before a school trip to France. Sam had been writing letters to her host brother in France for a few months and they were scheduled to have dinner in the Eiffel Tower on her 18th birthday. She had spent the entire summer before working to save up for this trip and was really excited to go and very upset to miss it. Sam was an inpatient at the University of Chicago for about a month after diagnosis for her first round of chemo, and during that time someone from Make-A-Wish came to interview her. Obviously, the France trip came up in conversation immediately because all of her friends were getting ready to leave for it and she was still really upset about missing it, and that seemed like a pretty clear idea for a wish.
Sam and her family didn't really know how Make-A-Wish worked then, and they knew she wasn't in any shape to be traveling, so they weren't sure how that would work. But they explained that it was for kids with any life threatening illness and that they could wait until Sam was through treatment and feeling better to plan the trip. Sam said, “It definitely gave me something to look forward to throughout the many months of intense treatment.”
After 4 rounds of chemo and many hospital stays over about 9 months, Sam finished treatment and she and her family started putting the France plan together. A little over a year after being diagnosed, Sam’s whole family—mom Gretchen, dad Charlie, and sisters Heather, Shawna and Veronica-- went to Paris for eight days. Sam said, “It was an incredible experience. We saw all the sights of Paris, and I even got to meet my host brother.”
Sam added, “…it was a really difficult time, and I missed a lot because of it. The France trip was a real bright spot in a very rough couple of years, and it was not something we could have done without the Make-A-Wish Foundation.”
