The Emporia Gazette

May 28, 2012

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Emporia State University senior Jenna Schmidt has been awarded a scholarship through a national American Cancer Society program that gives scholarships to people who have survived childhood cancers.

Announcement of the awards was made late last month by the ACS.

Schmidt, 21, was born and reared in Onaga. Her mother, Janell Schultze Schmidt, grew up in Olpe; she and her husband, David Schmidt, graduated from ESU.

It was a natural choice for Jenna Schmidt to head to Emporia State after graduating from high school. That was the first year she received the cancer survivors scholarship.

Jenna said she was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) when she was about 2 1/2 years old.

According to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, ALL is a type of blood cancer that is the most common leukemia diagnosed in children under 15 years of age.

Its symptoms include aches in arms, legs and back, black-and-blue marks for no apparent reason, fevers, headaches, enlarged lymph nodes, prolonged bleeding from minor cuts, and shortness of breath during physical activity, among other signs.

Schmidt remembers very little from the days of treatments that put the leukemia into remission.

“I remembered the small things, like people bringing presents,” she said. “... I just kind of bounced around from hospital to hospital.”

Her older sister, Tara, now 24 and living in Los Angeles, remembered the family being physically separated because of the treatments, Schmidt said.

“She kind of remembers the divide that went down ’cause my Mom would go with me and my sister would stay with my dad,” she said.

“My grandparents, they were ‘pray-ers’ when I had my cancer. We spent a lot of time at St. Joe’s,” Catholic Church in Olpe.

Schmidt was fortunate. The cancer went into remission and in 2001, she celebrated 10 years of being cancer-free.

“It didn’t take as long as some people’s. I think I got pretty lucky there,” she said.

Much of what happened when cancer was coursing through her body has been learned from the memories of her parents and other family members and friends.

“I’d really like to remember some of the stuff,” she said, mentioning that her mother kept a book about that time.

“One summer I sat down and read it, and I just started crying,” Schmidt said. “... I think for my parents it seemed like a lifetime before I went into remission.”

Schmidt has for many years gone back to the University of Kansas Medical Center to be tested annually to verify that the cancer has not returned. She reached a milestone date in 2008.

“Actually, last summer was my last checkup because they told me, ‘You know if you want to come back, you can do it, that’s not a problem. Honestly, there’s nothing left for us to check up on,’” she said, paraphrasing what she had been told.

It was an odd feeling, she said, knowing that she at last had been released.

“I spent my whole life kinda based around those checkups,” she said.

She didn’t return to the med center this year and instead trusted the advice of the professionals and moved on with her life and its busyness.

Schmidt is a senior at ESU majoring in sociology with a minor in rehabilitation services. She works during the school year in the sociology department at the university and this summer has worked at Grave’s Drug Store.

The ACS scholarship for childhood cancer survivors has been a boon for her each of the four years she has received it. Funds ranged from $1,000 to about $1,400 per year.

Schmidt emphasized that she doesn’t believe she’s owed anything because she survived her childhood cancer. She simply is happy to be alive and grateful for the funds the scholarship brings.

“It’s a blessing to just have that help to go towards tuition and books and stuff like that,” she said. “I’m just glad I’m getting that.”