“I knew that I wanted to help kids in the same way that my nurses helped me.”
Just weeks after her mother’s funeral, Courtney Simmons received a devastating diagnosis: osteosarcoma, a malignant tumor. Cancer. The same disease that had so recently claimed the lives of her mother in 2011 and her older sister in 2007.
Genetic tests revealed that Courtney’s mom had Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a rare condition impacting the tumor suppressor gene. Courtney had the syndrome. Her younger brother, Reggie, did not.
But Courtney’s story had an inspiring outcome. Now a senior at Saint Joseph’s University, she is in remission and on the path to receiving her interdisciplinary health services degree. “I want to specialize in pediatric oncology to work exactly with the kids that sat in the same beds that I sat in,” Courtney says.
After aggressive chemotherapy, surgery, and rehabilitation, Courtney has nothing but admiration for her team of doctors, nurses, and other specialists at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. And with her drive and determination, she will likely one day be working alongside them.