Pictured: Send It Day Trip Participants posing together after an afternoon of climbing. Laura Golian pictured bottom middle.
Having cancer as a young adult can feel isolating and lonely. FibroFighters’ Patient Advocate, Laura Golian, knows this firsthand. While going through treatment after a recurrence and metastasis, she felt as if there was no one who could understand what it was like to experience cancer, let alone a very rare one, in their mid-20s.
She came across the Send It Foundation, an organization that provides free outdoor adventures for young adult cancer patients and survivors. Their mission is to remove patients and survivors from from their cancer experience and create the space to play, connect, and have fun in the outdoors.
Laura attend her first Send It trip in March 2023, a free week-long ski trip in Tahoe, CA. The skiing was exhilarating and the connections and community were even better. It was the first time she was surrounded by a group of people who knew exactly what it was like to have cancer as a young adult, and everything that comes along with that.
To continue the Send It mission across the country, the Foundation supports alumni to lead day-trips in their local communities. Laura successful lead a kayaking event this summer in Chicago’s Lake Michigan, and the group was eager to keep the momentum going. Last month, she co-lead an indoor rock climbing event in Chicago. Everyone cheered each other on, challenged themselves, and most important of all, had fun and forged connections with others who “get it.”
In partnership with the Send It Foundation, Laura plans to lead these local meet ups quarterly, to continue to grow and strengthen the young adult cancer community in Chicago. These experiences remind us that no one is truly alone in this fight, and we are all stronger for leaning on each other.
One of the participants climbing the indoor rock wall. Full Send!