Throughout my career working with preschoolers, I have impacted many different children's lives. some of these children come in shy, unwilling to leave their parent's side as they battle with separation anxiety, others come in with behavioral issues, as they learn how to navigate the school environment, learning how to share and interact with other students. A good example of when I had a positive impact on a child's life is when a little girl first started. She was super shy, always hiding behind her dad's legs when she was dropped off and talking in whispers. I had to gain her trust by playing with her, after her dad showed her a toy that got her attention. Eventually, she allowed me to take her hand, as she hid behind her dad's legs. She started to let me bring her to the toys and ask her what she wanted to play with that day. Soon, she started doing this on her own. As she continued getting more comfortable, she started to talk louder, eventually breaking out of her shell. Soon, when dad would drop her off, she would run in giggling, happy to be there to play with her friends. She became my buddy, coming to me when she got overwhelmed and bringing over books to read and toys to play with all the time when she was there. If I hadn't stepped in to guide her to the toys when she was dropped off, she might still be that shy little girl who first started. Instead, she broke out of her shell and became social with friends and eager to come in every day. When her sister was old enough to start, she was so excited, talking up a storm about how she wanted her to come and have fun with her at school. The little girl we had when she left was a completely different child than the one who first started out. She was social, playing with friends, singing along during circle time, and instead of not wanting to come to school for the day, she didn't want to leave and go home. By helping her break out of her shell, I created a positive impact on her life at school. Now, she is in first grade; if I didn't help her in her preschool journey, her elementary school journey could be completely different. Her social skills may have had a hard time developing, as she was shy. By guiding her towards the toys, she eventually gravitated towards friends, as they came up to her to play and they became more social. I can't imagine what would have happened if I didn't try to help her when she was first starting out. I watched her continue to improve every week as she gained her confidence and became more independent. I enjoy getting to see children as they improve throughout their preschool experience. Watching them become more independent and seeing how they enjoy coming in every day makes me happy. It is the whole reason why I wanted to work with kids. These are experiences that I will always remember when I look back on how I got to make an impact on their lives when they were first starting out.

My experience on the softball field has allowed me to learn how to be a part of a team and work together. Without this experience, I wouldn't be able to work together with coworkers as one, like I can today. It would be harder to learn how to do this, as I wouldn't have the experience I needed to do this. As I work with preschoolers, things can get really frustrating, and we need to work together, just like on the field as we go for the ball. We could be running into each other, not knowing what we need to do to corral a bunch of 2-4 year old. Knowing how to make a plan and go for the right move allows us to back each other up as they run around the room with their energy or start throwing a tantrum, as they often love to do. This experience hasn't only helped me at work, it has also helped me with my two brothers, as they explored their own journey with baseball. It has taught me how to be their coach, helping me learn how to teach others how to do things. Showing them how to bunt, catch the ball correctly, and aim their throws. They often got frustrated, but slowly they were able to learn with my help. My many years softball experience helped them with their baseball experience. Teaching them how to be a team player as well, helping them learn how to field balls and back each other up. If I didn't have my experience, I wouldn't have been able to help them improve their skills and learn how to work together, especially with each other, as they often fought over the ball. It didn't only help them be a team player with friends on the field, but with their own coworkers as they grow up and finish school and each other, as they learn how to get along better. If I hadn't started my journey in softball, going into the education field as a high school senior would have been difficult, I wouldn't have had the energy to chase toddlers all day and work together with the other teachers. .y future path would be even harder, as I go into the child life field in the hospital. I won't only have parents and children to work with, but also the doctors, nurses, and other child life staff. This will be an even bigger team that I need to work with. My softball experience has allowed me to learn how to work together as one in a team, not just as a singular person, who only goes about themselves. Without this experience, I wouldn't know what to do in a large team, it has helped me for my future experience.

My personal connection to brain cancer is, I myself have brain cancer. I was first diagnosed in January 1999, had it removed in June 2000, it recurred and metastasized down the spine and into the CSF in May 2007, and it is still there today as a Grade III APXA. One of my friends also had brain cancer, we went to the same hospital and even had the same oncologist. She was taking a experimental drug and it caused it to spread, turning into leukemia. She ended up dying from it, and now her mother has a charity foundation in her honor called AshleyCan Pediatric Cancer Foundation. I have helped her with this foundation since it started. I think that its important to spread the word about brain cancer, it doesn't have the awareness that it should. The brain is the most important organ in the body, nothing would work without it. This cancer needs to be widely talked about, raising awareness and make it just as important as those we see every year, like breast cancer and prostate cancer. I want to take all the experiences I have had during this time to help hospitalized children once I finish my degree and become a child life specialist. I know first-hand what it is like to go through chemo, have scans and tests done, have surgery, and stay in the hospital for long periods of time. I want to take these experiences to help children understand their own experience and procedures that they might be going through. This scholarship will help by allowing me to obtain this goal. I only have a little bit more until I finish this goal, I want to use it to give children a hospital experience that has as little stress and anxiety as possible. They need to feel as normal as possible as they get better or go through different treatments and procedures. I envision myself using the education and skills that I develop during this process to help the children in the oncology units understand what they will experience better than I did, learning it from someone who hasn't gone through it themselves. The skills that I develop during school and within the internship process will only help me enhance the knowledge that I already have, allowing me to learn the best way to explain it to them, based off of their developmental and cognitive levels. I also want to use this experience to spread awareness of this cancer. It doesn't get the recognition that it deserves. Having more awareness throughout the world of this will allow people to recognize different symptoms, give funding towards research, allowing more treatments to be developed and helping those who need it.

By using my experience as a primary brain and secondary spine cancer survivor current patient, and epileptic as a result of it, I will be able to better understand what hospitalized children require. I will use these experiences to help them as a CCLS inside a hospital. Having this experience I also know how to explain all the medical procedures that come with being a cancer patient, like MRIs, CT scans, EEGs, chemotherapy, port access for treatment, and surgery. My experience with these things will allow me to explain what happens during these procedures, as I have experienced them all. As well as witnessed them through my friend's brain cancer journey and cousin's bone and lung cancer journeys. I didn't recieve radiation treatment, but the two of them did. I will be able to use their experiences to show children what happens with their body through the side effects they experienced with chemotherapy and radiation vs. my experience with just chemotherapy. A good example of those would be the hair loss, mine only thinned out, but they both lost theirs. I have spent 22 years being a cancer patient, and I want to take this experience to help hospitalized children. The craniotomies caused so much scar tissue, that it was pressing down on the temporal lobe and inducing hundreds of seizures a day. Now that it has been fixed, this experience will allow me to help those children who might go through the same experience. It allows me to explain what an EEG is, and how you should be careful so you don't pull the leads off because of the reaction to the glue. As I got my Associate's degree in child development, I worked with preschoolers while my tumor was stable for 10 years after finishing the last round of chemotherapy. After COVID we found out that the tumor wasn't benign anymore, when the pressure of a cyst caused a seizure. The MRI showed that, that cyst was growth of the tumor, and it was now malignant. The followed biopsy showed that it went from a Grade II PXA to a Grade III APXA. This made me want to go back to school for my Bachelor's degree, and work towards getting a CCLS certification to help those hospitalized patients understand what is going on. By using all of my experience as a childhood cancer survivor and current cancer patient, I will be able to help hospitalized patients through my own experience in the hospital setting. This will allow me to help those children and their families get through the stressful experience that comes along with being a cancer patient, and how they can navigate their lives in and out of the hospital at the same time.