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Savannah Brooks
Mrs. Corbett
AP Literature
09 April 2012
Senior Project Speech
In the time that you will sit listening to my presentation, one person will die from a blood
cancer. This form of cancer does not discriminate against race, sex, or even age. So, on February
19, 2010, it found another young victim in eight year old Jessica Stapor. On that date she was
diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia and since then has been in a tireless fight for her life.
Her two year battle with pediatric cancer was the inspiration behind my senior project. I created
a children’s book which depicts Jessica’s triumphant battle with cancer and teaches young
children like Jessica’s classmates about the disease.
The topic I chose for my research paper was leukemia from a medical standpoint. I chose
this topic because in order to teach others about Jessica’s disease, I first had to understand more
about it myself. I used this knowledge in creating my children’s book, describing AML and its
treatment process in simplified terms. This topic relates directly to careers in the medical field.
In order to create my final product, I first sought the assistance and experience of
someone knowledgeable in this area. Torri Rogers Westmoreland, the wife of a survivor and co-
founder of Stick It 2 Cancer, a team of friends and businesses who raise money and awareness
for cancer research became my mentor. In its two-year history, her organization has raised over
$100,000 for LLS and more recently created the North Metro Light the Night Walk which raised
$250,000 for blood cancer research. It was a challenge to find times to meet, but she was always
dedicated to helping me with whatever I needed. Our meetings primarily revolved around school

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hours and breaks. More often our agendas did not permit face to face meetings, so we emailed
and spoke on the phone instead.
Under my senior project facilitator’s guidance, I began to seek the information necessary
to create my children’s book and educate the community. In order to understand the full scope of
care and what goes on behind the scenes, I broke the treatment process into four parts: the
patient, the hospital, the physician, and the fundraisers. Therefore my project became The Faces
of Pediatric Cancer.
The first component involved learning of the treatments and hospital stays from Jessica’s
perspective. Together we would spend time engaging in fun activities while she shared her
experiences of the last few years. She walked me through scrapbooks of her surgeries,
chemotherapy sessions, and exciting adventures the child life specialists brought to brighten her
day while she stayed in the hospital. Child life specialists promote coping and normalization with
opportunities for patients to play and interact with volunteers from the community.
The second piece of this process was learning about the hospital as a business. I met with
the CFO of Clinical Care, Mr. Christopher Wilde. From this interview, I learned what CHOA
must do in order to generate revenue so as to support its future endeavors as a non-profit
organization. Through speaking with him, I discovered that the primary goal of Children’s is to
treat sick children, meaning that they will work with low income or uninsured families to ensure
that each child receives necessary medical care. When necessary, they set families up with
private donors or grants through AFLAC or other research agencies. I began to understand what
Jessica’s family must have faced with their daughter’s mounting medical bills and the generosity
they received from the hospital.

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Next, I explored the treatment process from a physician’s standpoint. To accomplish this,
I met with Donna Webb, a medical researcher for solid tumor therapies who gave me a tour of
the hospital grounds. I saw the Blood Cancer floor, including the partitioned rooms used for
chemotherapy treatments, the surgery quarters, and the conference suites where the physicians
gather each morning to discuss the day ahead of them. This tour not only further enticed me to
go into the medical field, but it also gave me a better understanding of what life was like for
Jessica for the past few years.
The final part of my research on this topic came from meeting with a representative from
The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Monica Morse. This organization helps to raise funds to
support children who are fighting for their lives against blood cancers. They do this through
funding research projects, providing financial assistance programs for treatment, and educating
families with sick loved ones, as well as medical practitioners and others in the community.
Interviewing Miss Morse enabled me to see the outreach Jessica’s family received when dealing
with her diagnosis.
After looking through this window of what went on behind the scenes in Jessica’s
treatment process, I sat down to compile Jessica’s story. Her mom gave me a photo slideshow
that chronicled Jessica’s treatment process. I added her pictures to the collection of those that I
had taken. I then took screenshots of each picture, edited them, reformatted them, and saved
them to my computer. Next, I created a timeline of the major events that shaped the past few
years of her life. Then I began constructing a book that would both tell the story of a real hero
and act as a teaching tool to educate young minds. Once this was complete, I submitted my work
to an online publishing site and awaited the arrival of my book.

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When Jessica was first diagnosed, her classmates did not quite understand the disease. As
most children do, they feared it. It is my hope that the book I created can be used in the future to
show children that cancer is something there is going through, not something that defines her and
that they should be supportive of her during this time.
Though I feel I accomplished a lot in my senior project, not all went smoothly. I
struggled to find a proper meeting time for my interviews. It was difficult to schedule a time
when professionals were in the office and I was not in school. In the end, we arranged meetings
over my school breaks, satisfying both my school attendance requirements and their hectic work
schedules. While creating my book, I ran into countless technological problems. Incompatible
formatting, loss of saved progress, editing issues, and even forgetting to click the submit button
to place my order were minor setbacks. I did a lot of Google searches during these sleepless
nights and luckily, found file converter websites and helpful customer service personnel who
helped me to trek through this stressful time.
I learned a lot about my work habits through the completion of this project. Typically, I
tend to procrastinate; however, since I had so many important contacts waiting for my responses,
I knew that I had to stay on top of things. This project showed me that when I have the pressure
of people depending on me, I can maintain efficiency. A negative discovery I made was that
technology is not my forte. After reconverting and editing a hundred pictures three times, my
knowledge base has improved dramatically.
Also, I discovered that it is challenging for me to step outside of my comfort zone with
my communication skills. I am shy by nature, so completing my first few business calls and
emails was brutal. However, after some practice it almost became second nature. These people

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genuinely wanted to help me and had legitimate interest in my project. This discovery made it
easier for me to contact professionals.
Through this project, I solidified my career interests. Though Mr. Wilde holds an
impressive job title, I discovered that this was not the occupation for me. I could not imagine
spending over eight hours a day leading meetings. I believe that a career that better suits my
interests would be one with direct patient interaction. I would love to work as a pediatric
oncologist for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. To accomplish this goal, I plan to receive an
undergraduate degree from Georgia Tech with the goal of going on to medical school upon
graduation.
More than 1 million people in the United States are living with a blood cancer. I’m going
to do something to change that number. Will you help me spread the word to help find the cure?
Thank you for your time this evening. Are there any questions?