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Cancer survivor Corrie O’Hara, 23, shows off a holiday card she designed as a youngster for the Roswell Park Painted Box Project in the gift shop of Roswell Park Cancer Institute. The year 2009 is the 20th season of The Paint Box Project and O’Hara, now a nurse at Mount St. Mary’s in Lewiston, is among those whose cards are featured in the anniversary catalog.
PAINTBOX PROJECT: Falls cancer survivor’s card selected for 20th anniversary
Before she got cancer, Corrie O’Hara wanted to be a doctor. After the extensive cancer treatments she received at Roswell Park Cancer Institute she changed her mind.
The nurses there impressed her so much, she decided to become a nurse.
“After I went into remission I changed my major to nursing,” said O’Hara, now a nurse at Mount St. Mary’s Hospital in Lewiston.
O’Hara’s cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, was diagnosed in her senior year at Niagara Falls High School. She started chemotherapy right after her graduation in 2004, in the pediatric wing at Roswell Park.
It was during a holiday party for the children at the hospital that O’Hara created a painting for The Paintbox Project, a program where young patients’ artwork is recreated on holiday cards and gifts to raise money for cancer research. Hers was a whimsical effort, detailing Christmas tree ornaments, and it was included in the card catalog that year.
The treatment went pretty smoothly. O’Hara’s body received huge doses of chemo but she recovered pretty quickly thanks to athletic conditioning from her high school swimming career. After that, O’Hara went back to her life, and her family created a new tradition of sending out Roswell’s holiday cards each year.
She is now five years cancer-free and this year, her painting is being featured in the 20th anniversary catalog of the Paintbox Project, celebrating the work of healthy adult survivors of childhood cancer.
The program, which has raised over $7 million for cancer research, also uses the images on handmade jewelry, L.L. Bean tote bags, gourmet chocolates, and Build-a-Bear teddy bears which are sold at the hospital, online at roswellpark.org or through a 24-hour volunteer phone line at 877-275-7724.
The money raised acts as critical seed money for research, according to hospital administrators, and helps scientists at the hospital leverage their most promising results into larger funding opportunities.
“The funds that have been raised through this program have made a significant impact on cancer research and care for patients everywhere,” said Candace Johnson, deputy director of the department of pharmacology and Therapeutics.
O’Hara, a Niagara Falls resident who is also attending Niagara University to become a nurse practitioner, has a far better understanding now of the potential impact the children’s’ painting have on cancer research.
“To be in the 20th anniversary catalog was a pretty big honor,” said O’Hara. “The response I got from so many people was really flattering.”
The fact that such a life-changing experience is forever documented by a cheerful holiday card seems fitting for the 23-year-old who kept an upbeat attitude throughout the ordeal.
“The only thing that bothered me was that as an 18-year-old I was losing my hair,” she said. “But if you are depressed and angry and say, ‘why me,’ you are not going to change anything. You may as well have a good attitude.”
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