Cancer survivor grows up to become a nurse at the same hospital that treated her


Montana Brown will never forget how compassionate the nurses at AFLAC Cancer Center in Atlanta were when she was a patient there, and as the hospital's newest pediatric oncology nurse, she's ready to follow in their footsteps.
Brown, 24, battled cancer twice as a child. At age 2, doctors found out she had rhadbomysarcoma, a rare type of childhood cancer that affects the connective tissue, and Brown had to undergo chemotherapy for a year. At 15, she was diagnosed with cancer again, and doctors told her she had to quit gymnastics and cheerleading. She went to the hospital weekly for chemo and radiation, and formed bonds with her nurses. "The love they showed me and my family in our time of need just really helped me," Brown told ABC News. "It helped me want to become as kind and as caring and as compassionate as they were for me."
Now that the roles have reversed and she's the nurse, Brown hopes to inspire her patients and will share with them that she knows exactly what they're going through. "It's kind of crazy how full circle it's come so far," she said. Catherine Garcia
The Week
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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