Childhood Cancer Survivors

By Mary Kearl

Zac York was 12 when he was diagnosed with cancer. Pamela Ledbetter was 10. Matt Zinter was 3. Caroline Bridges was 20. These are just a handful of the thousands of pediatric cancer cases diagnosed each year -- and just a handful of the childhood cancer patients turned friends of 24-year-old Carolyn Rubenstein, author of "Perseverance: How Young People Turn Fear into Hope -- and How They Can Teach Us to Do the Same." These are just a few of the stories included in her new book, available in September 2009.

Zac's mountaineering training and eventual hike up California’s Mount Whitney (the tallest mountain in the continental U.S.) is just one of the stories of pediatric cancer survival. AOL Health had the opportunity to interview "Perseverance" author Rubenstein and two of the survivors included in the book -- Zac York and Caroline Bridges. Below, learn more about their struggles and how they faced them -- and continue to face the world and each new day -- with optimism.

Click through the photo gallery below to read these personal stories of perseverance.

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Carolyn Rubenstein was six years old when she came face-to-face with cancer -- at Camp Sunshine, a program run by her parents' friends for children diagnosed with cancer. Though at the time she had no idea the gravity of her new friends' health conditions, a seed was planted that "would grow into a natural passion to do anything I could to help children battling cancer," Rubenstein says.

At 14, she returned to the camp, this time cognizant of the isolation cancer treatments dealt her new camp friends -- when they weren't at camp, they were often away from school and often away from kids their own age. First, Rubenstein wrote letters to the friends she made, then she decided to get others involved and created a pen-pal program called Carolyn's Compassionate Children (CCC). By the time she was 15, the organization became a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Since then, as she faced her own college -- and college scholarship -- search, the organization has begun awarding scholarships to childhood cancer survivors. In the summer of 2008, the organization launched CCCpedia, a database of college scholarships awarded to young-adult cancer survivors across the country.

Though this book is about survivors, recognizing their feats and their "Perseverance," Rubenstein says it is also a way to remember those without the lucky statistics in their favor. According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), on average, one to two out of 10,000 children in the U.S. develop the disease. Of the approximately 10,400 children under age 15 diagnosed with cancer in 2007, about 1,545 are expected to die.

"This book is a major way I have chosen to keep the power of these individuals alive," says Rubenstein. "All of my proceeds from the book will go to CCC and the Chordoma Foundation. My close friend, Josh Sommer, founded the Chordoma Foundation when he was diagnosed with Chordoma, a type of spinal cancer. The organization is very close to my heart. One of the most incredible individuals I have met, Justin Straus, passed away in September from Chordoma at 13 years old. The title of this book came from him." "Perseverance" was the word Justin wrote on a whiteboard in his hospital room just before he died, as a message of strength for himself and those around him.

Next: Zac York's Personal Story of Survival: From Brain Cancer Patient to Mountainer and Caroline Bridges' Story: Blogging About Her Leukemia Diagnosis