Students share experience with cancer

Annual essay contest draws heartfelt response



Lacey Grace

Lacey Grace

It’s one lottery ticket nobody wants to win.

Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma is an extremely rare form of adolescent cancer that affects only 1 in 5 million people.

“A disease I could barely pronounce was taking over my life. I was 15 years old and dealt a difficult card,” said Lacey Grace, a 2018 Agoura High School graduate and keynote speak at the seventh annual Dear Cancer It’s Me student essay contest April 14 in Thousand Oaks.

Currently in stage four of the disease and fighting for her life, Grace has undergone four surgeries and chemotherapy. She shared her story during an essay contest luncheon at the Cancer Support Community Valley/Ventura/Santa Barbara headquarters on Hampshire Road.

“Cancer does not define us,” said the 19-year-old. “You are greater than your circumstances.”

Last year, Grace spoke eloquently and passionately at the Agoura High School graduation. She is a previous two-time winner of the CSC student essay contest, and today she works, attends college and has even started her own nonprofit.

Emily Gillen

Emily Gillen

“Eventually, instead of saying ‘why me,” I said, ‘try me.’” Grace told her audience.

Today, she said, she is both “fighting and thriving.”

In the first person

This year’s contest drew 42 entries from 25 area high schools. Students shared essays in two categories: one that allows them to discuss their own experience with cancer—and another in which they relate how the disease has affected a family member or other loved one.

Emily Gillen, a junior at Royal High School in Simi Valley, won first place and a $1,500 scholar- ship from the Cancer Support Community for her intense, personal story about her grandfather’s struggle with sarcoma and his eventual death.

“It breaks my heart to think about all the things that he isn’t here to be a part of,” Gillen, captain of the Royal High swim team, said in her essay. “There is now an empty seat on those cold, metal bleachers by the side of the pool; there is a vacant chair at all of my end-of-the-seasons swim banquets; there is an empty pew in the church that raised his children. . . . I can’t even begin to describe the immeasurable sadness.”

Maysun Piquette

Maysun Piquette

Gillen said she and the other student writers see the annual essay contest as both cathartic and therapeutic.

“ I think it’s unique in that we’re united by this tragedy, but that we can continue to grow one essay at a time.”

Maysun Piquette, a 14-year-old at Foothill Technology High School in Ventura, turned in the winning essay and won a $1,500 scholarship in the personal category as she chronicled her travail against brain cancer.

Maysun underwent surgery and chemotherapy—and when she returned to school she had to endure the inevitable, behind-the-back rumors, such as “She’s dying,” and, “She’s going to be ugly when she loses her hair.”

“I was frustrated and fed up with the way I was being treated,” Maysun wrote in her essay.

She went on.

“I will never forget the day I started chemo: March 7, 2018. My little brother’s birthday.

“Instead of helping set up for his party I was sitting in a doctor’s office getting chemicals put into my system to kill you. Instead of being my usual energetic self and playing with the kids, I was sitting on a bench physically and emotionally exhausted from the day.”

But, as Maysun said in her “Dear Cancer” letter, “You taught me to slow down and take a better look at life and you gave me a chance to grow as a person and improve in the places I need it.”

The essay contest finalists include Esther Kim, a 17-year-old Westlake High junior and the school’s top cello player for the past two years. She has lymphoma. Rayce Aaronson, an Agoura High School senior, submitted an essay about his father, who succumbed to brain cancer.

The essays were read by a team of 26 judges.

Teens who have been affected by cancer in one way or the other are among the 2,400 people served each year by the CSC support groups. The programs come at no cost to the public.

“Cancer is not only devastating but expensive. We seek to ease the burden,” said Andrea Roschke, president of the Cancer Support Community board of directors.

CSC’s next major fundraising events are the Evening of Hope Gala on April 27 and the inaugural Hope Walk in T.O. and Westlake Village on June 15.

For more information, visit www.cancersupportvvsb.org.

John Loesing is a member of the CSC board of directors.