Art Calms Children’s Cancer Fears

Like many 15-year-olds, Stacy Arnott attends school every day, has a part-timejob and enjoys surfing, swimming and bike riding in his spare time.

But once a month, Stacy must do something the average teen-ager doesn’t--undergo chemotherapy.

Stacy was diagnosed as having leukemia two years ago. Since then, the teen-ager’s life has been a battle to deal with the disease.

One way the Marina High School sophomore expresses the emotions he has about his illness is through art--painting and sketching. With the help of the Kids Cancer Connections Inc., Stacy and many other Orange County children with cancer will display their work at the Modern Museum of Art in Santa Ana this month.

“Drawing and painting help me in a lot of different ways,” the teen-ager said. “Many times you don’t really want to talk about how you feel, and this is a way to keep it from balling up inside.”

More than 150 pieces of artwork by children from seven hospitals in the Orange County and San Diego area will be displayed during the “Hooked on Hope” exhibit. The Children’s Art Festival exhibit will run June 23 through August 4.

“Art for many of these kids takes their minds away from their disease,” said Jann Rabin, clinical cancer center coordinator for UC Irvine. “Art has a calming effect that may relieve many of the kids of their fear of treatments.

“Sometimes the kids coming in for treatment will draw a chocolate cake to represent a needle or nurse they don’t like. It eases their mind and makes them think of something good.”

Along with sponsoring the art exhibit, Kids Cancer Connection prints the youth’s artwork on holiday greeting cards for sale. Last year, the Glad Tidings Holiday fund brought the nonprofit organization more than $200,000.

“Many times a picture can say much more than a 4-year-old can verbalize when he’s ill,” said Michele Smith, executive director of the group. “When you look at some of the objects they’ve drawn, you can see their desire to be healthy and live.”

Smith co-founded the group in 1989, shortly after discovering her 9-year-old daughter Stacie was suffering from leukemia.

“It is so very hard to describe what a family actually goes through when something like this happens,” Smith said. “The entire family unit goes through such an ordeal, and most of time the hospitals can only deal with the medical side of healing. So much more is needed.”

Smith and a group of volunteers visit the different hospitals weekly to talk with young cancer patients and also to encourage them to draw.

Along with providing an emotional outlet for young people and their families, the group makes financial contributions to research institutions for children’s cancer and offers a college scholarship each year. This fall the group plans to start a teacher-student program aimed at helping students stricken with cancer re-enter school after long hospital stays.

“Of course a child misses a lot when he or she isn’t in school and many times that work is very difficult to make up,” Smith said. “This takes considerable understanding on the part of the instructors who today aren’t just allowed to teach anymore but must be able to deal with children with many types of problems. We don’t expect for teachers to automatically know how to deal with a child that is sick, so a program like this is needed.”

Stacy, who works as a cook for Domino’s Pizza in Huntington Beach five days a week, agrees that missing days from school is one of the most difficult aspects of dealing with his illness.

“At the beginning of the school year, my mom went around and told my teachers about my illness, but you change classes every quarter so it’s something you have to do each time, and I guess sometimes some teachers don’t get the word.”

When he was first diagnosed as having the most common form of leukemia to effect young adults, Stacy’s grades dropped dramatically because of school absences.

“Since we’re graded or given points for attendance, my grades were low because of the days I’ve missed. That can get you down, because you know what you’re capable of doing, it’s just that sometimes you don’t feel like it.” The group hopes that the teacher-student program will act as a liaison between school officials and the students and also serve to educate officials on the many problems facing the young patients.

“That is so many times the most painful part for the child, because interacting with peers is so essential for young children,” Smith said. “Many times the children don’t have hair because of the treatments, and that has to be explained to other children, along with comforting the teachers who want the kids to feel normal and to get back into the swing of things but are understandably constantly worried about how the child is doing. It’s difficult to forget the child is sick.”

This year, volunteers with the program began visiting local schools with young cancer patients and showing classes the Peanuts’ special “Why, Charlie Brown, Why?”

The special, which ran earlier this year, deals with an elementary school girl stricken with leukemia.

“We thought it was very informative for school-age kids, particularly since the girl lives, as do more than 60% of children with cancer,” said Rolf Rudestam, a member of the board of directors for the organization. “We’ve even gone so far as to call the producers of ‘Peanuts’ to suggest that when a new special is made to make sure that little girl is a part of it so the kids will see she really lived. Kids don’t forget things like that.”

This year the program will help sponsor the Pediatric Oncology Retreat in Palm Springs with the UCI Clinical Cancer Center, where adult family members are taught what to expect from their child’s treatment and how it may effect the family emotionally, physically and financially.

The retreat will also focus on the well-being of siblings.

“The main purpose of the retreat and the program is to stress survival,” Smith said. “These children can live and have productive lives. They want to move forward. Through projects like this, they get the support needed to do so. We’re hoping that through programs like this, people with all types of handicaps will get the understanding they need.”