Miracle Weekend: Brooke’s story

WATCH (above): Find out how your donations to the Miracle Weekend helped Brooke and her family. The Miracle Weekend runs May 30 and 31.

Brooke had a plan, to go to school, have a career, get married and have kids.

After being diagnosed with a rare cancer, she now lives life day to day.

“I think I prefer it that way,” she says.

Brooke initially went to BC Children’s Hospital thinking she had pneumonia and was expecting to get two weeks of antibiotics but instead was told she had cancer.

The disease first impacted her left lung and the cancer is so rare they have not found anyone with the same diagnosis.

“I’ve had surgery to remove my lung and the cancer. I’ve had multiple rounds of chemotherapy, direct injection chemotherapy, and radiation… and the cancer came back,” Brooke says.

“I’m in palliative care now. They’re trying to keep me as healthy as they can for as long as they can.”

Sometimes, Brooke says, she thinks “why me? I’m young, I have ambitions, I have goals, why put a stop to that, why put that on hold? But most of the time I think, why not me? I’m strong, I can handle this.”

That’s where living day to day comes into play for Brooke. She has made a ‘living list’ versus a ‘bucket list’ because she would rather be out enjoying her life “rather than being huddled in the corner crying over something I can’t change.”

Brooke says she supports BC Children’s Hospital because they do everything they can to keep her healthy, alive and well.

This weekend, Global BC will be telling the stories of children and their families who have been helped by BC Children’s Hospital as part of the special Miracle Weekend coverage.

“I have a story to share,” Brooke says.

“I will do absolutely anything for them because they’ve done absolutely everything for me. I wouldn’t be here for if it wasn’t for Children’s Hospital… they’ve saved my life.”

For more stories like Brooke’s, go to our Miracle Weekend page.

To donate to BC Children’s Hospital, go here.