My name is Cody Morrison, I am 34 years old, and I have an incredibly rare cancer. It's called Large Granular Lymphocyte Leukemia (or LGL Leukemia). It’s incurable (but treatable!) and it occurs in around 1 in 5 million people.
So, I'm not just unlucky enough to get a one in five million cancer... I ended up getting both subtypes of it! You see, back in 2015 I had a yearly blood draw - nothing serious, just my yearly blood test that my doctor ordered - and those results started a journey that ended up with my sitting on the crinkly paper of a doctor's exam table hearing that at 24 I had not one, but two kinds of leukemia at the same time.
I am a research oriented person - so after I read the fact sheet that my oncologist gave me, I went to Google and read everything that I could read (with a lot of help from Wikipedia and dictionary to figure things out) about LGL Leukemia.
There wasn't a lot.
So then I started looking up cancer in 24 year olds and I didn't find a whole lot. So, I began to make a list. The list has (almost) every site I have found related to cancer - both YA cancer and cancer in general. Whenever I see a new person in a group, I ask them "Hey, do you need resources? I have a few if you want them!" which leads to my cancer friends chiming in with, "Yeah, a few..." followed by some laughter - since they have seen my list, they know that it has something for everyone.
One of those organizations that I found was Cactus Cancer Society (well, Lacuna Loft at the time) and it offered so many things to those in the AYA cancer community. It, along with all of other nonprofits in the YA cancer non-profit space, try their best to eliminate isolation and loneliness among those who are in that stage of life where they are trying to leave the nest, only to be snatched back in by cancer.
Cactus Cancer helps other people in that situation find each other. Very often, young adults like me feel like we are adrift without a paddle when we are dealing with cancer. Cactus Cancer helps young adults connect via creative activities. Activities help connect people - you can tell a lot about a person by how they respond to a prompt in the weekly Coffee & Oodles program, which is every Wednesday. I love doing Coffee & Oodles - they give us 5 minutes to respond to a prompt (I usually write something - I can barely draw a stick figure!) and then the rest is sharing and listening to others, it’s a wonderful part of my week.
I am honored to be nominated for the Young Adult Cancer Advocate of the Year. Winning it will make an impact because it means that I helped fundraise so much for an organization that I love.
Now, you might be wondering, “Why $5000?” That's because I decided to set a pie in the sky ridiculously high "I am never going to hit this" amount. So... why $5000, when I could've done something like $1000 or $2000?
That’s because it costs around $50 per kit for an art workshop - so $5000 will allow 100 people to attend free workshops. Think of the effect that you will have on 100 young adults - that is 100 people getting to do something fun, they get to have a distraction from cancer for an evening, you’re helping form 100 new friendships, you’re making 100 smiles.
If I get over that $5000 mark, well... just remember, every $50 is another smile.
Here's a video where I talk about this fundraiser:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DG...
EDIT: We hit $5000, so let's up the goal to $7500! Let's go!
