Reese Gallinaro, a 16-year-old cancer survivor from Long Island, is inspiring joy among children undergoing cancer treatment with a Lego drive. After battling Leukemia twice, Reese recalls Legos as a source of motivation and joy during her recovery, especially during her long hospital stays. Now cancer-free for almost six years, she has initiated this drive to collect Lego sets for patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering, aiming to provide distraction and happiness to kids facing similar challenges during their treatments.
Some days, it was hard just to sit up. Playing with Lego motivated me to actually do something throughout the day. Such a big part of treatment is getting up instead of lying in bed all day - there's just not many things that are motivating, but Lego was one of them.
It really became an escape for her the second time... If she would say something like 'my arm hurts,' I would just hand her another bag.
I was immunocompromised so I was in isolation a lot, my friends were really just my nurses and family. So I needed to keep myself occupied a lot.
After I was finally able to comprehend that I'm safe, the first thing I thought about was all the other kids in the hospital.
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