“I felt like I should appreciate life more and appreciate the little things,” junior Shannon Schmidt is appreciating her life after becoming cancer free.  

Shannon suffered from Leukemia when she was three and half years old for three to four years. Shannon underwent many treatments in order to be cured such as spinal taps, chemotherapy, and port placement.  Finally the fight was over when she was seven to eight years old.  

Shannon, like any little girl, was upset when she lost her hair.  This happened a total of three times throughout her fight.  She said “I remember when we went to my grandma’s I felt my head and it was like my hair was gone. I am ugly I don’t want to be around anyone, so then I hide in a room.”  

 Shannon received a make a wish by the Make a Wish Foundation, “ Disneyland.”  Her wish was made possible by her medical staff who sent the Make a Wish Foundation to her.  She wished to go Disneyland and meet the characters, mainly the Disney princesses.  

Even though the medical staff and her family tried to comfort her and make her as happy as they could she still struggled while going through her treatments.  However she had turned to her artwork as an escape.  “It helped me, I put my thoughts into what I did kinda what I did.”  

Another thing that helped Shannon out majorly was the support of her mother. “My mom, she was there through everything, she was just always there.”  Shannon and her mom are very close still to this day.  Shannon when she works she buys her mom gifts or will create an art piece for her to show that she cares.  Also, she is closer with her mom than ever before after becoming cancer free.   

 To this day she also still creates art.  “Kind of I know I want to make my own business on etsy.  I plan to sell scrunchies as well.”  In the future Shannon plans to start selling her artwork and other creations on Etsy.  

Overall, Shannon is very grateful for her medical staff, mom, and grandma, along with art to help her get through her journey to becoming cancer free.  

Her advice for anyone going through cancer is, “ Just keep moving forwards as Robinson says.” This is a quote that her mother used to tell her when she was fighting her cancer, it is a quote from, “Meet the Robinsons”.