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Eight weeks ago Samaria (my daughter) was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. The chemo has made her very weak, tired, and sick. She has also experienced a lot of frustration at not being able to go to school and birthday parties and such with her friends. Most of all she’s missed going on long bike rides through Lakeside Park and Lincoln Park. She has been feeling down lately and even when she was feeling okay physically she wouldn’t try any of her old hobbies or activities. Mostly she just wanted to watch movies and cartoons.

Samaria got to attend the Jackie Novak Retreat for Children at Sunstone Cancer Support Center and Therapeutic Riding of Tucson (TROT). She had a great time and I really appreciate the scholarship we were given. Without it we’d never have been able to attend something like this.

During her 3 days there she got to spend a lot of time around horses, specifically a beautiful fox trotter named “Julie.” Samaria had looked at many of the other horses and although she loved them all, none caught her eye. While looking at Julie, the horse stuck her head out through the stall and sniffed Samaria. And kept sniffing her. Samaria didn’t so much pick Julie as Julie picked her.

My daughter got to pet the horse, brush her, and even braid her tail. Best of all Samaria got to ride Julie and even take the reins and direct and guide her. It was a huge deal for her to get to control something so much larger than herself (about 1160 lbs larger!). And it helped her confidence to see that she could control something that big. The staff at TROT was incredible and kept stressing what a good job Samaria was doing with Julie.

Since leaving the cancer retreat Samaria has been much brighter and happier. She has also been more active. She rode her bike around the block twice (that may not sound like much, but to those who were at the retreat and remember how easily she became tired and had to rest it will seem like a lot). She went swimming and played at the park for half an hour. She even took her dog Cassie for a walk around the lake at Lakeside Park. This is the most she’s done in a long time.

At the cancer retreat I learned some relaxation techniques to help Samaria to relax, focus, and deal with some of the pain from treatment (today for instance she had to have two shots deep in her leg muscles. Normally when she has this treatment she is sore and grouchy for the next two days and won’t do anything. Using the relaxation techniques, deep breathing, and healing touch cut this time down to about two hours and she even did another short bike ride today and took a long play bath). These techniques and the guided imagery tapes and scripts we got have been great.

Laurie Levon and Lora Matz were the retreat facilitators. Ginny Anderson was their assistant. I can’t say enough about how wonderful and helpful they were and how much we learned. I want to thank them.

I’d also like to thank everyone else at Sunstone, TROT, and the Jackie Novak foundation for making this retreat possible. I would recommend this cancer retreat to any child who has been diagnosed with cancer and is having a tough time of it. It makes things better.

Sincerely,

Josh (Samaria’s dad)

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