Rappelling up a rock-climbing wall was Akilah Lopez’s greatest challenge at MD Anderson’s Camp Family Fun Day in August 2022.
“They had a zigzag route, which was easy,” says the 14-year-old, who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia almost two years earlier. “But I went up the hard way. I was scared I was going to fall or get stuck.”
She didn’t. Akilah made it to the top, and her reward, once there, was access...

Seventeen years ago, a phone call changed the course of Fayleta Lawrence’s life. It was her mother, breaking the news that she had just been...
One day before severe winter storms swept through Texas in February 2021, Ronald Abraham and his family left their Houston...