A trip of a lifetime for pediatric patients at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
A group of patients traveled down to sunny Fort Myers, Florida to enjoy a weekend of Red Sox spring training baseball.
“I am really excited to go on this trip and really excited to gain the amazing experiences that are to come this weekend!” said Declan Cassidy.
“I am really excited,” said Abigail Perkins. “We are going to go on water slides at the resort and get away from this cold weather… I am pretty excited about that. And, we are going to meet the Red Sox players. I really want to meet Devers! I want to get a ball signed from him!”
For many young patients, this is the first time away from their families since their diagnosis.
“There is no doubt that this changes lives,” said Lisa Scherber, director of the patient family program. “It changes lives for these patients, that in a second their world has changed. Their independence, everything they do as a teenager, their social life… everything that they are used to is pulled out. And this is a weekend where they are going to get all that back.”
45 Jimmy Fund Clinic patients between the ages of 13 and 21 will be taking in the sights and sounds from JetBlue Park at Fenway South.
Scherber says the trip has created friendships that last a lifetime.
“This is the 20th year of this trip, and I have talked to kids that went 20 years ago, and they are still best friends with the kids they met at spring training,” said Scherber. “No matter what happens with your treatment, this is the stuff that these families are going to remember. They are going to remember the joy, they are going to remember the laughs, they are going to remember the friendships, and the parents are going to remember their kids happy.”
One 15-year-old girl says she’s using the trip as a celebration of making it through treatment.
“I got diagnosed six months ago, and I am all finished with my treatment now, so it is kinda like a little celebration to get out and go on a trip because I haven’t been on a trip since before I got diagnosed,” said Perkins. “I am pretty excited about that.”
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