Amy knows firsthand that St. Jude never gives up on its patients because she’s been a patient twice.

When she was 10, Amy started to get a “blah” feeling that wouldn’t go away. She was diagnosed with ALL, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. For the next two-and-a-half years, she received treatment at St. Jude and its affiliate clinic in Peoria near her home.

A few years after she was declared cancer free, she had to do it all over again.

In high school, that “blah” feeling returned. She tried to will it away, but she knew the truth before tests confirmed it. That second experience with treatment was more difficult emotionally. But she found solace in fellow patients her age while she was far away from friends back home.

And while she was a patient the second time, Amy met her future husband during the annual 465-mile relay run between Memphis and Peoria. Now, more than 30 years after she was first diagnosed, she has two kids, and her days are filled with all of the activities that make a family.

She’s gotten what she always wished for during treatment: a wonderfully normal life.

Donate to St. Jude: www.stjude.org/donate

Transcript available HERE.

Credits Host: Joel Alsup
Recorded by: Andres Garcia and Nathan Black
Music production: Kazimir Boyle
Producer: Geoffrey Redick
Editor: Grace Korzekwa Evans
Executive Producer: Louis Graham

This podcast is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.