Jumping Back Into Childhood

Chanel Matthews was a typical, active teenage girl, and like most girls her age, she loved dancing, jumping rope and socializing with friends. But soon after her twelfth birthday, her life changed dramatically. Chanel was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a bone cancer in her left thigh bone. The discovery occurred after a fall that left her leg painful and swollen for several days.

“I was upset and scared,” Chanel says. “I was afraid I might not make it.”

Chanel sought treatment at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, which is home to a nationally recognized Pediatric Sarcoma Program. It is one of the few programs in the world with the expertise to provide the complex treatments that children with sarcomas need, and is staffed by some of the nation’s leading pediatric cancer experts. At Montefiore, an multidisciplinary team is dedicated to helping children battle cancers of the connective tissues, such as the bones, cartilage and muscles.

The Pediatric Sarcoma team includes specialists such as pediatric oncologists, radiation oncologists and orthopedic oncologists. It also includes Child Life specialists who help children adapt and understand what is happening and provide social and psychological services to help patients and families.

The team holds multidisciplinary clinics where they work together to diagnose and treat children with sarcomas, so that children and families have all resources in one place, eliminating the difficulties of going from doctor to doctor and building to building.

The Program integrates innovative treatments including leading-edge chemotherapies, surgery techniques and computerized mapping technologies, reconstructive services and advanced image-guided radiation therapy.

Chanel’s healthcare team at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore focused on getting her well. They developed a treatment plan tailored to her unique medical and social needs, and they worked with Chanel and her family every step of the way to ensure that they were active participants in her care. Together, they decided on aggressive treatment that included surgery, chemotherapy and rehabilitation therapy.

“Battling sarcomas can be difficult. Chanel had to endure some grueling therapies, but she did well with them,” says Richard Gorlick, MD, division chief of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “But with the right treatment, the outlook for most patients with sarcomas is positive. About 60 to 70 percent of kids get better, and Chanel is one of them. Since she completed her treatment there have been no signs that her disease has returned.”

“It was a very trying time for the whole family,” says Chanel’s mother, Samantha. “But the staff at Montefiore helped a lot. They were very supportive, and answered all of our questions and concerns. I don’t think Chanel would have received the same level of care if she’d been treated somewhere else.”

Chanel did so well following her treatment that she was able to spend last summer focusing on being a kid again. After months of grueling hospital visits Chanel had a new treatment plan: fun! With a little guidance from her team at Montefiore, Chanel attended a New Jersey camp for kids with cancer. She also traveled to far-away Texas for another gathering of children with cancer. Fresh air, sunshine, games, music and most importantly, friends were the focus of her happy days as she celebrated and enjoyed life, as a child should.

“For the first time, I was around other kids who have been going through the same things I have,” she says. “I learned not to worry so much about my cancer and just be myself. I had so much fun at camp that I didn’t want to come home. Saying goodbye was really hard because I made some great friends. We still e-mail and call each other all the time.”

To learn more about Chanel’s story and the Pediatric Sarcoma Program at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, visit our Web site at: www.montekids.org/mystory