When I was just 10 years old, only a few weeks past my birthday, I started having random nose bleeds and a stomach ache. After many tests at the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary, Canada, I was told I had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, which is cancer in my blood. I had to quit soccer, miss school with my friends and take medicine that only made me feel worse for what was supposed to be the next two and a half years. Words like "transfusion", "chemotherapy" and "lumbar puncture" should never be a part of any kids vocabulary, but it wasn't long before they became part of mine. Though I had the best specialists caring for me, the treatments made me feel nauseous and tired. I just tried to stay positive by using laughter and humor as medicine too. Treatment was rough, I would spend long days in the oncology clinic and even longer nights on the in-paitent unit. There would be days where it would feel like a marathon just to walk to the bathroom. My treatment impacted me in all sorts of ways, from my energy to bone health. The treatment made it so I was always in need of blood transfusions, which made already long days even longer. Part of my treatment also included lumbar puncures, which is were chemotherapy is injected into the spinal fluid. This was one I got to know quite well, having done over 50 in the span of my treatment. When I began my journey, I was given a roadmap of all my chemo treatments, but when you have cancer nothing really goes to plan. It took me an extra round of treatment to get into remission but I did make it, and it was incredible hearing the news that I was finally in remission in January 2020. Everything was going great, until it wasn't. The cancer was tricky and by the end of that year I ha relapsed twice. The doctors told me the next best option was a bone marrow transplant that would give me a whole immune system. I was fortunate at this time to be enrolled in a clinical trial for a special drug that ran all day every day for five months in a IV that I carried around in a backpack. Medications like these are why it is so important for fundraising for clinical trials as it gave me a sense of normalcy as I was able to remain at home, out of the hospital, and feel as best as I could prior to my transplant.And on May 13th 2021 I got my transplant, and while it looked like any other blood transfusion I'd ever received, this one was special. It was the 9 million cells that would save my life and allow me to live a cancer free life. I have unfortunately been left with some lasting side effects from all that treatment. I have developed a new disease called Graft vs Host Disease which can occur with stem cell transplants, it means my new immune system is working a bit too hard and killing off some of the healthy cells in my body that it shouldn't. Through the help of many different treatments both at the Alberta Children's Hospital and now at the Cross Cancer Center in Edmonton Alberta, I have been able to manage this new disease with the help of so many specialized treatments and medications that would not be possible without fundraising for trials.Today, I am doing great. I am heading into my second year at the University of Alberta, studying Immunology and Infection, and am working to build my life back after spending over a third of my life in and out of hospitals. I have had the incredible opportunity on campus to run a club that does stem cell donor drives in support of Canadian Blood Services to work to get as many donors on the registry to hopefully save a life, just as my donor saved mine. I am grateful to my friends and family, my team, and to everyone who continues to support pediatric Cancer research across the globe, as without ground breaking research, none of the treatments that I received would even be possible. So thank you again for reading a bit about my story, and I hope that me telling my story can inspire so many others to tell theirs too.