Vice President Biden Surprises Idaho Cancer Patient
I wanted to save this for Feel Good Friday, but I've been following St. Luke's tweets trying to make this happen for a very special Fruitland HS senior and when it finally happened, I just had to share!
Last Thursday, I saw our friend Maggie O'Mara share a tweet about 17 year-old Cierra who's currently undergoing chemo treatments for leukemia at St. Luke's in Downtown Boise. Unlike a lot of girls her age that would give anything to meet a celebrity like Shawn Mendes or Justin Bieber, Cierra made it a personal goal to meet someone even more high profile, Vice President Joe Biden.
When her team of doctors and nurses found out that was her goal, they embarked on a to make it happen! The social media side of their efforts was spearheaded by St. Luke's Public Relations Manager, Anita Kissée, who tweeted a video of Cierra explaining why Biden was her favorite Vice President of all time: he's a man's man, loves ice cream and since losing his son Beau to brain cancer at the age of 46, has worked on revolutionary cancer initiatives. In the video, Cierra admits that she didn't know or care about Biden's work to support cancer research until she started her own battle with the disease but really appreciates it now. Meanwhile, Cierra's medical team wrote a letter to Biden telling him about this special little girl and even inviting him to her high school graduation next month.
Well, through the magic of the internet (or snail mail) the message made it to Biden and together with the staff at St. Luke's, he arranged a very special surprise for the Fruitland High senior. Maggie might be taking the week off to spend spring break with her kiddos, but she was there to catch the surprise. Grab a tissue and check out the video!
As you could imagine, she was a bit overwhelmed that it was actually happening but was touched that Biden gave her an extra boost of confidence beating the ugly blood cancer.
After the call, he reached our on Twitter to tell Cierra she remembered his main message and to commend the amazing staff at St. Luke's.
I've done a lot of fundraising work for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and it's given me the honor of meeting incredible fighters like Cierra. Their spirit and resilience in the face of the toughest fight of their life is inspiring and I'm so happy to see something like this happen for someone who refuses to let cancer be a "sentence" instead of just a word. You go, Cierra! We're here support your journey to become cancer free and #CierraStrong!