Carson City teen’s cancer battle shapes pediatric medical career goals
Submitted by admin on Tue, 02/27/2024 - 9:30am
Pioneer Academy senior Brooklynn Case, 17, is savoring her final year of high school after having her sophomore and junior years interrupted by her battle with cancer.
During Case’s sophomore year at Silver Stage High School in Silver Springs, about 40 miles northeast of Carson City, she was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a type of bone or soft tissue cancer that primarily occurs in children and young adults, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Case said she spent the rest of her sophomore year and beginning of her junior year in and out of numerous hospitals for surgeries and other treatments.
“I was pretty much isolated for a year,” she said.
Although she wanted to stay on top of her school work, Case said the toll the medications and treatments took on her made it too difficult.
After she was declared cancer free in October 2022, the then-junior was determined to go back to her normal life and get back on track with her school work, but it wasn’t easy.
“It was really hard for me to get back into being social with other people,” she said.
She also transferred to a new school, Pioneer Academy, in between her treatments. Pioneer Academy is an alternative school for middle and high school students in the Carson City School District that offers online and in-person instruction and touts its smaller campus and class sizes. (For comparison, last school year Pioneer Academy had a little over 200 students, about a tenth of the number of students at Carson High School.)
Case said thanks to the school’s flexibility and the staff, she has earned all the credits she needs to graduate on time. After that, she wants to pursue a bachelor’s degree in biology and eventually become a pediatric oncologist so she can help children who are going through a similar experience as what she went through.
It’s made her look at life differently.
“It was like a negative but also a positive impact because it kind of opened my eyes up to what life really is and that you shouldn't take anything for granted,” she said.
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— This story is used with permission of The Nevada Independent. Go here for updates to this and other Nevada Independent stories.
