Two-time cancer survivor shares her story to help patients and families

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va (WDTV) - Brett Wilson, a Charleston native, is sharing her childhood cancer story to help others who are fighting and their families.

“I was diagnosed as a young child at 22 months old with ALL leukemia,” said Wilson. “I was given a year to live, I went through 5 years of treatment, which included some radiation to my head with several sessions, and then I was in remission for a year and a half.”

She ended up getting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at nine years old, and it wrapped around her throat, making it hard for her to breathe.

“I actually died twice,” said Wilson. “I didn’t understand it at the time until they were able to finally intubate me and kind of explain to me what happened.”

Wilson blue-coded twice, which means she went into cardiac arrest, and had to go through three more years of treatment.

All the years of chemo and radiation led to a lot of long-term health problems for Wilson, like cognitive and physical effects.

“At the age of 12, I knew that I was not going to be able to have children,” said Wilson. “We all are kind of taught this go to school, get good grades, come out and you’ll make it, find your husband or wife or significant other or whoever and live happily ever after and get a great job and you’ll make it. Well, my picture never started out that way and it never finished that way.”

Wilson was bullied by kids she went to school with, and even her bus driver, because nobody knew the reality of her situation.

Now, at 51 years old, Wilson helps patients and their families through the Walking Miracles Family Foundation, which helps people understand the cancer experience, and stops them from experiencing the same things she did.

“Because I had lived in Charleston, you would think being the capitol city that there would be resources and ways to get help, but there wasn’t, and that’s what led me to one, developing my nonprofit, but two, leading people to a way to kind of figure out what resources that they might need for themselves without having to do it all themselves.”

The Walking Miracles Family Foundation helped over 350 families in West Virginia last year with travel cards, tablets, port shirts or a combination of all three, called a Package of Hope.

Wilson’s book, I Am a Walking Miracle, can be found on Amazon or Kindle for $20.

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