Brianna Miller is a 22-year-old from Southern California who was diagnosed with Stage 2 Hodgkin’s lymphoma shortly before her 21st birthday. She is a patient at CHOC. In this five-part series, she takes readers along on her look back at her journey with cancer.
Being diagnosed with cancer right before I turned 21, I was pretty surprised when we drove up to CHOC for an initial meeting with my oncologist. I asked my parents why we were going to a children’s hospital. In my mind, I figure that once you turned 18 and were legally considered an adult that you would have aged out of pediatrics as well. I remember sitting in the waiting room, surrounded mostly by young children, and feeling completely out of place. There were cartoons playing on the TV, tiny chairs in the waiting room and cartoon characters on the walls in the treatment rooms. I hadn’t been to my pediatrician since I left for college, so it all seemed like a flashback to when I was a child, and not like somewhere that someone my age would be treated.
As unusual as it seemed at first, now that I’m done with treatment I have to admit that I 100 percent would not want to be treated anywhere other than CHOC. The decorations of little cartoon characters in the rooms at the clinic and the Disney movies always playing in the waiting rooms seem so much more bright and welcoming compared to the drab white walls and sterile waiting rooms of the non-pediatric doctors’ offices I’ve visited. During my inpatient stays, there was always something exciting happening in the hospital to encourage me to get out of my bed and take a little walk around. Oncology Prom, festivals in the second-floor lobby, special visitors in Seacrest Studios were all incentives to get out of bed and get moving. The nurses at CHOC would become more than just my caretakers; they became my friends. Since quite a few of them are fairly close to my own age, there was always something that we had in common and something to talk about.
The Adolescent and Young Adult program at CHOC is really such an amazing resource within the child life department. For my first round of chemotherapy, I had to be admitted to the hospital, and that weekend happened to be the same weekend of CHOC Prom, which was such a fun experience. Going to the dress selection and primp events and meeting former patients who are now in remission was so encouraging. Even though I was just beginning my treatment at that time, I could see how they had all gone back to having normal lives and how they’re so positively dealing with the lingering side effects of treatment. It was and still is encouraging to me, knowing that when I return to college, although it will be more challenging than before, I will be able to tackle life the same way that they have.
One of my favorite parts of being treated at a children’s hospital is the other patients- the actual children. Although I am a secondary education major, I’ve always appreciated the genuine optimism and happy demeanor that young children possess. Regardless of the trials that these young oncology patients were facing, it always lifted my spirits to see them because more often than not they were toddling through the halls with the biggest smiles on their faces. In the same way that meeting former AYA patients made me excited for life after cancer, the little kids that I met or simply saw during treatment encouraged me to power through treatment. If a two-year-old or a six-year-old can go through treatment with a smile on their face, what excuse do I have to not try and make the best out of what I’ve been given?
Receiving my treatment for cancer at a children’s hospital has enabled me to be more positive about the whole experience. Having wonderful doctors, nurses, and an incredible AYA support team has made these past six months easier and much more comforting than I ever could’ve imagined at the beginning.
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Learn more about the Hyundai Cancer Center at CHOC
CHOC Hospital was named one of the nation’s best children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report in its 2023-24 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings and ranked in the cancer specialty.
