A young girl describes her battle with cancer

When Jade Farmer was 10 years old, a doctor asked her if she knew what leukemia was.

Jade recalls that moment vividly.

“At the time, I did not, but somewhere my brain had clicked that I had cancer, and I said that it was cancer,” she says.

Jade was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. She began chemotherapy at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in 2019, and she underwent a bone marrow transplant when her cancer returned in 2021.

Now 15, she’s healthy and a sophomore in high school. The Maryland teen recently was elected class parliamentarian in her student government.

Nationwide, more than 9,600 children under the age of 15 are expected to be diagnosed with cancer this year, according to the American Cancer Society. And kids are more likely to survive cancer than they were a few decades ago, the cancer society says.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Jade and her mother, Anne Moon, talked with Chief Healthcare Executive® about battling cancer at a very early age. They also offer perspective on the impact on patients and families about the difficulty of the cancer journey.

(See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)

‘Didn’t know what to do’

For the most part, Jade says she’s doing well.

“I still have lingering joint issues from when I had to get my bone marrow transplant. But besides that, everything else has been going well,” she says.

Some days are better than others, but the joint issues are “pretty constant,” she says.

Jade talks about learning that she had leukemia and processing the news. She says before she was hospitalized, she wouldn’t have known about leukemia.

Her mother, Anne, recalls the devastating moment, saying she was so taken aback she almost expected to be told it was a prank on a hidden-camera TV show.

She says she kept her composure, until she called her fiance to share the news.

When she told him that the doctor suspected Jade had cancer, Anne says, “I just broke down.

“I didn't know what to do,” Anne says. “I didn't know what to expect. We've never known anybody to be on that journey before, and me being a parent, the worst thing came to mind, and I didn't know what the journey was going to be like.”

Adding to the emotions, Anne was just weeks away from giving birth to her second child when Jade was diagnosed.

“I was like, how am I going to do this, having a child who's sick with cancer along with being pregnant and the baby's due in the next month? So it was stressful and shocking and scary,” Anne says.

The diagnosis of her daughter’s cancer also elicited feelings of helplessness.

“I was trying to figure out, what can I do to make it go away immediately? What can I do to get it out of her body and either put it in mine, or just eliminate it all together,” Anne says.

• Read more: More cancers found in those under 50, with women seeing higher increases

The return

Jade underwent four rounds of chemotherapy at Johns Hopkins in 2019, and it appeared the treatments had succeeded.

But in 2021, doctors discovered that the cancer had returned.

“The doctor said that my test results were a little off and that they needed to redo my results, and as soon as I heard that, the first thing that popped in my mind was that it came back,” Jade says.

For Anne, the discovery that her daughter’s cancer returned inspired a mix of anguish and anger.

“I was baffled,” Anne says. “I was like, we've already gone through four chemo treatments in 2019. What do you mean it’s back? You told us that it was gone and everything was fine and that she's in the clear, and she was in remission. And I didn't want to blame the doctors, but, you know, you're supposed to fix her. Why is she not fixed?”

Jade endured three more rounds of chemotherapy, and doctors determined that she’d need a bone marrow transplant. At this point, Jade says, “I honestly wasn't so sure how it would go this time.”

Anne’s mother donated bone marrow for the transplant. Jade spent two months in Johns Hopkins from September through November 2021.

Compounding the difficulties, Johns Hopkins still had some restrictions on visitors, since America was still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anne says she couldn’t bring her toddler, and at times she’d have to leave Jade earlier than she’d liked because of the schedule of the babysitter.

“I felt guilty, because as a mom, you're supposed to be there for your child, and I couldn't be there for her day in and day out and throughout the night as well, and it was definitely mentally and emotionally exhausting,” Anne says.

When Jade came home in November 2021, Anne says it was “hard.” Anne would have to get up in the middle of the night to give her medication.

“It was a rough time, but we were glad to have her home,” Anne says. “You know, the negative of having to wake up every four hours is nothing compared to having to be with her in the hospital and seeing her stuck there.”

• Read more: How the American Cancer Society hopes to improve outcomes for Black women

Recovery

After the transplant and her treatments, Jade is thriving today. She enjoys school and spending time with her friends. When she’s out shopping, she’ll make a donation if the retailer is offering an option to donate to a cancer charity.

“I try not to make it a big deal, because I don't want to be known as the cancer kid anymore, because that's how I was in fifth grade,” Jade says.

It hasn’t always been easy. Even as she’s grateful for her recovery, Jade says she was sad at times.

“I had a lot of breakdowns, because I couldn't be a normal kid, and that was like one of the hardest things for me, especially going back to school, because I had to wear a mask,” she says. “Even after covid, I couldn't fully participate in certain things, because I just wasn't ready to do that yet.”

After her own cancer battle, Jade says she’d like to be an oncology nurse. She says she’d like to help others who are fighting cancer.

“There were so many nurses that were so helpful and doctors,” Jade says.

But she says one nurse in particular stands out.

“She was actually the first nurse to get me to take my pills easily, so that's kind of a memory that always stuck with me, and I always wanted to be helpful, like she was to me,” Jade says.

When Jade goes back to Johns Hopkins for checkups, she likes to visit the nurses.

Sarah Watt, MD, a Johns Hopkins oncologist who treated Jade, says the nurses and staff adored her.

“Jade is so special,” Watt says. “The nurses who took care of her, particularly in the inpatient unit, they're just obsessed with her, and she's just a really special kid.”

Jade keeps her up to date on music from Avril Lavigne, but she also says that the teen’s maturity far exceeds her age.

“She is years ahead of where most 15-year-olds are,” Watts says, adding that she’s endured so much more than a kid her age would have to otherwise handle. She's handled it so gracefully.”

Anne and Jade are grateful for the care they’ve received throughout her cancer battle.

When Jade was asked if she has anything else she wanted to say before ending the interview, she shared a message for others battling cancer.

“Anyone who's struggling, I just want them to know that they're not alone, and I'm sure they hear that all the time,” Jade says. “But seriously, they're not alone, like, even though I may not know them and they don't have my contact or anything, I'm still fighting for them.”