LOUISVILLE, Ky. — No parent wants to hear the words "your child has cancer," but every year it is a reality for more than 15,000 families.
September begins Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and while many focus on the youngest people fighting cancer, the teenagers battling alongside them are sometimes overlooked.
Louisville 17-year-old Jennah Blair is one teenager fighting brain cancer.
"I think all of us have noticed lately, some people can smile through their mask," said Dr. Aaron Spalding, a pediatric radiologist at Norton. "She can smile with just her eyes and make everyone feel appreciated, which is ironic, given that we're here to serve her, and then she comes in and helps us."
After picking up her sister from school, Blair heads to the Norton Cancer Institute, waits her turn, and straps in for radiation. Even though the tumors detected on her brain a few months ago are gone after surgery and chemotherapy, this is her insurance plan.
"She'll be done with all her treatment soon," Spalding said. "We're all excited to be a part of that with her, and to celebrate that last day of treatment."
After grueling treatment, many go home to rest — but not Blair. She leaves radiation and heads right for dance class at the Louisville Academy of Fine Arts.
"When my chemo first started, I wasn't dancing too much cause it made me really sick," Blair said. "But days I was feeling good, I loved being able to go to dance because I felt like more of a normal kid again and less like a cancer patient at the hospital all the time. Dance was one of the things that stayed pretty normal in my life that had, all of a sudden, changed a whole bunch."
Blair is a senior at the Youth Performing Arts School (YPAS), and is getting ready for her next performance, "The Nutcracker." It's not her first performance post-diagnosis. She inspired many in the community by joining her best friends on stage for "Peter Pan" just weeks after brain surgery in May.
"I actually performed as Wendy," Blair said. "My best friends here, we call ourselves the 'Peter pals,' they were Peter Pan and John and Michael and Tinkerbell, so it was great to have a support system of best friends on stage with me the whole time."
Blair said she is not letting cancer slow her down, continuing to dance to the beautiful cadence of life.
To learn more about ways to get involved and support patients at Norton Children’s Cancer Institute, visit GoGoldForNortonChildrens.com
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