A lasting bond
"I've had many people tell me, 'It happened when you were 3, and now you're 22. It's done, move on.' The thing is, cancer is never not going to be a part of my life. You don't get over it."
The three young women turn to each other for the special support they can't find elsewhere.
For them, friendship has become a substantial aspect of coping with the lifelong effects of cancer. Calling themselves "unbiological sisters separated at birth," they believe that having one another has made all the difference in enduring adolescence, transitioning to adulthood, and moving forward with their lives while understanding the lifelong consequences of their ALL.
Lines was diagnosed in 1985 when she was 21 months old. Risko and McNulty followed in 1990 at the ages of 5 and 3, respectively. Little did they know then how their treatment would shape their futures.
Risko remembers watching Tiny Toon Adventures and drinking a soda in the hospital when she learned that her knee pain was actually from ALL, a type of blood cancer also known as acute lymphocytic leukemia or acute lymphoid leukemia. Her first question to her doctor was, "Will I die?"
Thankfully the answer was no. Survival rates of this most common type of leukemia among children have improved steadily in the past 40 years. In the 1970s, five-year survival for children younger than 20 was 61 percent; today, it has climbed to 83 percent.
After five weeks of inpatient chemotherapy, Risko was given a central IV line, allowing her to leave the hospital and return a few times a week for treatment that lasted three years. But she says reintroduction to public school was worse than the hospital.
"I hated going back to school because kids either teased me or ignored me," recalls a vivacious Risko, known as the funny one of the group. "It was 1990, and people were absolutely, ridiculously still phobic about cancer. I looked different – I had lost my hair, I was using a walker, and you could see my central line – and kids were scared. I only had one or two friends from first to seventh grade."
McNulty, who found out about her ALL through routine blood tests, doesn't remember a whole lot about being in the hospital. "I see it as a blessing, a positive amnesia," she says of her three years of once-a-week chemotherapy and radiation. But as with Risko, vivid memories of being taunted in school are hard to shake.
"I was teased about the way I looked. I came back to school and had less hair," recollects McNulty as she unconsciously tucks a straight, dark lock behind her ear. "When I was younger, I was open about it with people. I wanted to tell anyone who would listen about my story. I had a Peanuts cartoon video about Linus's friend who gets cancer and a scrapbook that I brought to school. Then I realized I can't go around introducing myself and telling people whenever I enter a room, 'Hey, I had cancer, how are you?' People don't know how to react."
Barely a toddler, Lines was too young to remember much of her two years of treatment at Children's Hospital Boston. Like the other women, she suffers from learning problems, including subtle memory issues, and spatial and visual disabilities. As difficult as that was, it also helped her mature earlier than many peers in terms of her priorities.
"Growing up, a lot of my friends didn't get me, and I didn't want to open up to people," says Lines. "My mom always wanted me to go to support groups, but I didn't want to."
It took almost 15 years – until she was a senior in college – for Lines to feel comfortable enough to let others in.
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