Tommy was diagnosed with leukemia when he was just 17. He was treated at MSK Kids, the pediatric program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
TOMMY
I think it's such a huge impact that a kid can be told like, hey, you have cancer at such a young age. It comes out of nowhere and nobody expects to get it.
I was 17 when I first found out I was diagnosed with leukemia.
I was going to do a month of chemo and then I was going to take a break. I got a rare fungal infection, which caused the chemo plan to stop and for them to do a lung surgery and a lung removal.
After surgery, my mom and dad tried to hand me my phone and I couldn't even hold it in my hands and type. How weak I was. I had to kind of start from scratch and learn how to walk and learn how to stand up and learn how to do everything again.
I stayed over 150 days in the hospital.
Everyone at MSK makes you feel so safe. Nurses that weren't working that day came to support me. They gave me an amazing walkout. It's probably one of the best memories in my whole life.
My amazing social workers, they made me a big sign and everyone signed it, wrote me a little note, and I have it hanging up in my room now.
DR. MARIA LUISA SULIS
So that, I mean, that’s Tommy. People like him drive everyone around him to do 150% of what they can to help.
TOMMY
When there's a lot going wrong, you kind of just have to look around and say, you know, I'm in good hands. And there's always one good thing in a bad situation. Just try your best to find it and keep moving forward.