Cancer camp lets kids unwind

By NICK GEVOCK Chronicle Staff Writer

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK -- Jacob Black still was receiving chemotherapy for cancer a year ago when he first saw the boiling mud at the Fountain Paint Pot here.

Black returned to America's first national park on Friday, only this time his rabdonay sarcoma, a cancer of the soft tissue, is in remission. But he wanted to come back to Eagle Mount's Big Sky Kids, a summer camp for kids ages 10-18 with cancer, as a counselor.

Black knows what the other kids are going through. And he knows how comforting it is for kids with cancer to meet others going through the same ordeals.

"Even though we didn't know each other, we shared a common bond," the 19-year-old from Santa Fe, N.M., said under the hot morning sun Friday.

The camp, which started Wednesday and lasts 10 days, is in its 21st year and drew 17 kids. They come from all over the country, and have a variety of cancers: leukemia, bone and brain cancer among them.

But for 10 days, the kids whose lives are wholly consumed by fighting cancer get to be kids. And they get to spend time with kids who understand the awful reaction to chemotherapy, the feeling of going bald and other effects of cancer.

"They don't have to pretend, they can just be themselves," said Fran Benson, whose niece Allie Miller came to the camp two years ago before she died from a rare form of sarcoma. "They can just take their hat off and be bald."

Benson, from Chadham, N.J., came back to volunteer at the camp and last year sponsored another kid's trip. She saw how much it helped her sister deal with Allie's condition and wanted to give back.

The kids don't have a dull moment during the camp.

They went rafting down the Yellowstone River on Thursday, then returned to Buck's T-4 Lodge in Big Sky for the night. They were up early Friday for the journey to Yellowstone, where the day was consumed by a tour of the park's geysers, wildlife and other natural wonders.

That's just the beginning. The kids will go horseback riding, take hikes and camp out one night.

Doctors at major children's hospitals refer kids to the camp, which is run by Eagle Mount and gets help from numerous area business.

"A lot of the doctors know that we want kids that wouldn't have this opportunity otherwise," camp co-director Jill Holder said.

The camp is a vacation for the parents too, Holder said. They also spend every day focused on fighting their child's cancer, so the camp is a welcome relief.

"I haven't taken a vacation in three years," said Catarina Rodriguez, whose son Julio's bone marrow cancer is in remission since a successful transplant last July. "Your life is put on hold when your child is sick."

Other parents said they could open up right away with people they'd just met about what it's like to help a child fight cancer.

Debbie Petsko of Whitehall, Penn., said her daughter Alexandra was so thrilled with the trip she bought 25 postcards to send back home. Debbie said she has made several friends in the two days since the camp started.

"You just connect, because everybody has everything in common," a teary Petsko said. "It's going to be hard to leave -- we're like one big family."

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