CHOC Oncology Patient Ball
Every year, The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation CHOC Oncology Patient Ball celebrates the bravery of CHOC’s adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients with cancer and all they have overcome. It is more than an event. It is a special night filled with fun and community that embraces CHOC’s commitment to preserving the magic of childhood.
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Courtney Cheney Toney: It matters. It’s not just, “Oh, let’s do an event and a party.” It matters. And it did for me back when I was a patient and it does now for patients.
Kara Noskoff: This is a tradition at CHOC for our teen and young adult oncology patients that’s important to everyone here.
Eliza: I believe the Oncology Ball is special because it makes us feel special.
Kara Noskoff: I am not a doctor or a nurse. I can’t cure their cancer, but I can change the way that they experience cancer.
Kara Noskoff: We’ve always, as a team, picked the theme. This year was a little different. I was spending some time with a patient at her bedside.
Eliza: And I was like, “Hey, you know it would be really cool if we did a fiesta theme.”
Kara Noskoff: We wanted it to be a surprise, but she lit up thinking about, “Oh, you need to have this and you need to have this.”
Eliza: And sometimes you have that one person, like that one nurse or that one child life specialist, that just comes in and brings that light out in you.
Courtney Cheney Toney: So excited to see where this continues to grow because it’s such an incredible event for these patients that really need that.
Eliza: CHOC is like a second home to me.
Kara Noskoff: They get to forget about cancer for a night and look and feel their best.
Courtney Cheney Toney: It really was the first time that I felt like there was community for us and that we were being seen.