A shining moment worth sharing

By jenrvball - June 04, 2019

At first glance, she looks like a cute kid, maybe about 5 years old, who can swim across the pool by herself. She doesn’t look like a kid who has had to recover from massive amounts of toxic chemo, which has a tendency to wreak havoc on their lungs and many other organ systems, nor heal from 20 rounds of high dose proton beam radiation. She doesn’t look like a kid who will go to Duke Childrens Hospital over 3 days next week to be scanned for metastatic disease, Stage IV cancer, and be evaluated for over all current health, late effects, evidence of any disease. She cannot swim next week in the first official swim meet because she will have a peripheral IV kept in her arm for access.

So today, today she amazed us all again at her teams practice mock swim meet. She swam her little heart out, unassisted and earned herself her first ducky. If you look closely at the video, you will see her smiling at us as she swam her best towards us. Look even closer and see the yellow rope she could have stopped at because she is only 5, and watch her swim under it determined to get to the wall.

You are watching a cute little girl, who is 5 years old, who has learned to swim across the pool by herself. But that’s not all we are watching❤️🌈
#charlottestrong