“Do I really have to stay? Are you sure you can’t just take me home? Please, mom?!”

“No, sis… you can do this.”

I still remember the conversation my mom and I had the moment I got out of the car and started packing my stuffed duffle bag down the bark chip trail. I was not ready. I thought I was ready, thought this was the best plan. But it was summer break… and I was already homesick, already way over the whole sleeping in a cabin thing… and so, so nervous about being the new kid.

“Mom, what if I can’t do this? Maybe I wasn’t meant to be here after all?? Please just take me home, we can sneak out fast.”

That was 16 years ago…

And I was 21 years old… arriving at Camp Ukandu for my very first summer… as a staff member. 

Cancer has always been a word in my vocabulary. I was diagnosed with and treated for retinoblastoma before I was two years old. My younger brother then went through the same thing less than four years later. It wasn’t anything new, but it was still a bit of a mystery. 

While cancer was part of my life, and in a way, part of my identity since before I could remember. I knew I had it, knew it had impacted my life (and the lives of my family members), I knew I was different… but there was still so much I didn’t KNOW. 

I heard about Camp Ukandu when I was 18 and received a scholarship from the cancer survivorship American Cancer Society. Camp Ukandu used to be a program that was funded by ACS, and part of the scholarship criteria was 20 hours of volunteering for an ACS program or event. Camp sounded cool… but there was an age requirement. 18 for those who had been campers and 21 for those who hadn’t. So, I had to wait. I was lucky enough to receive the scholarship again and three years later I signed up. 

Welp, I was waitlisted. I still remember the weekend I found out that I wasn’t going to camp.

AND THEN 10 days before the 2009 camp week, I got a call saying a spot opened up and they wanted me to join the staff. I just needed a camp name… and… a pep talk. 

I was so excited. And then soooo nervous. Kind of like the scene in “Tangled” when Rapunzel leaves the tower for the first time… yeah… that was me. 

From there, things moved quickly. I talked to my lead counselor and got the rundown of things I needed to bring: a traveler coffee mug (what?), a fitted sheet (um, random), and a camp name (UGH, a camp name????). 

So, I took the advice, packed my bag and showed up on the sunny Saturday in June. I forgot the mug and the fitted sheet… but I had a camp name, ⅓ isn’t that bad??! Right?

Once my mom dropped me off at my cabin in front of the dining hall (and then proceeded to book it out of there), I met my lead counselor in person and the introductions started. 

WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO?

Smile and Hugs from Wonder Woman and HeMan. WHO?! A Happy WELCOME from Shakes. It was a blur of other weird names and new faces and tears. I was holding back tears. Not the happy ones. No, these were tears filled with fear and regret. This was too much. I knew no one, no one knew me. I didn’t know anything that was going on or what to expect… AND I FORGOT MY FITTED SHEET. I was not going to survive this. 

Training started, introductions continued, and I learned this was everyone’s first year at Camp Collins. We did a scavenger hunt and I met my first friend - well, I didn’t know he would be a friend… not yet. But Uno became one of my best friends. 

That’s how it all started. A warm welcome from a kind counselor. And people seemed to like him, maybe this was my “in” to this camp…. What did they keep calling it… “family??”

There was a contagious energy around Uno, and around all of camp. People here really seemed to like each other. I still didn’t know where or how I would fit in. 

End of day one… I cried myself to sleep. YUP. 

When the campers arrived on Sunday, I found out that I was, again, the new person. I was in a cabin with ALL returning campers. How was I supposed to “lead” when all of these campers knew more about camp than I did? They knew the songs, the routines, sure the physical place changed… but CAMP didn’t. 

What was I doing here!?

Healing. That’s what I was doing. I didn’t know it at the time, and it would be years before I put words to what happened to me that first year at Camp Ukandu. As I mentioned before, cancer wasn’t a new term for me. BUT surviving was. For the first time in my life I was surrounded by people whose “differences” helped tell their story but didn’t define them. It was “normal” to have scars - physical and emotional. There was a level of acceptance at camp that I had never experienced before.

I had spoken about being a cancer survivor. I had written blog posts about being a cancer survivor, but I hadn’t actually worked through what I had experienced or how cancer had impacted my life. 

At camp, during staff training, we learn that camp is for the campers. Our purpose that week, as staff, is to create a welcoming and outrageously fun environment for kids experiencing a cancer diagnosis - whether they are the patient or the sibling, camp is for the campers. I didn’t expect for camp to affect me the way that it did. That first year at camp ripped open a wound I didn’t even realize I had. Whew, it was raw and weird and unexpected, and I had no idea what to do with any of it. 

Then the week was over, we were thrown back into the real world. I didn’t even know these people’s real names. We barely exchanged contact information. WHAT? Talk about an abrupt ending. One moment I am wearing a tutu on a Tuesday and the next I am back in my mom’s van driving home. 

WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED?

Camp. That's what happened. 16 years ago I stepped onto those bark chips thinking I was ready. And I can confirm now… I was not ready. I had no idea what was to come. I had no idea how my life would change. I became a cancer survivor at the end of that first week. I finished my crash course of treatment and was left to just navigate the world. I learned who my support people were, who my friends were, and who would be there through it all. I learned what it meant to be “Friends of the Family.” But I had no idea what it all meant.

It would take years for me to process what that first week meant, and how it changed my life. I found a community that I didn’t know I needed and a purpose I had always longed for. I found my people. That year at camp shifted my career, my passions, my hobbies, and it made me who I am today. 

I know how cheesy that sounds. TRUST ME. but also… trust me. This community changes who you are, right down to your marrow. I didn’t get to go to camp as a kid, and while there are times I wonder how being a camper would have made for a different childhood, how I could have started to heal much sooner… but then I don’t know where that would leave me now. Who would I be? Where would I be? Not right here, not sharing this particular experience, and definitely not reminiscing on what it meant to be 21 years old and finding community and connection. 

Every June I show up to camp, start down that bark chip path, and wonder how I got here. I still feel like that new kid sometimes. Not because I don’t have community or connection but because each year a different version of myself shows up and each year I learn something new. 

Last summer, someone introduced me as a veteran staff member. SAY WHAT? Veteran?! I am still new! What do you mean, veteran?!? 

“bleeker, how long have you been coming to camp?”

Me: “only 16 years!”

In many ways, 16 years feels like forever… and in other ways I still feel like a new staff member… completely unaware of how much my life will change because of this one week of camp. 

My advice - go to camp. Follow your heart and do not listen to the little voice in your head begging your mom to take you home. Oh, and bring a traveler coffee mug and a fitted sheet. Trust me. 

Thank you to bleeker for writing this piece for Ukandu. If you have a blog post or content you'd like to share with Ukandu. Please reach out here.

If you're interested in volunteering with Ukandu, you can learn more here.