Bringing together children who have battled cancer

Like any 12-year-old, Karmen Bean likes summer camp for many reasons: swimming, arts and crafts, the cruise, the dance. She even has a crush on another camper, whom she pointed out across the dining room at Camp Goodtimes on Vashon Island.

"And you can drink as much pop as you want," the Everett girl said Tuesday.

But unlike most kids, Bean was diagnosed with bone cancer at age 9, after doctors found a tumor the size of a fist on her knee, and she had to have a metal rod placed into her leg. Since finishing treatment last year, her cancer has been in remission.

For Bean and her fellow campers, Camp Goodtimes is a place where memories are made. And it's also a place to forget. About chemotherapy. And hospitals. And cancer.

"During treatment I always looked forward to being here," Bean said. "It's sort of like an incentive to survive."

Established 21 years ago by the American Cancer Society, Camp Goodtimes allows children ages 7 to 17 who have — or used to have — cancer to spend a week with their siblings doing things other kids take for granted. While they are there, a volunteer staff of oncology doctors and nurses see to their medical needs. About 20 percent of the campers currently are being treated for cancer.

This year's camp kicked off Sunday and ends Saturday, with a major highlight happening today, as the campers take a tour cruise around Elliott Bay and out to Tillicum Village on Blake Island.

The best thing about Goodtimes, the campers say, is that it lets them be kids without worrying that others won't understand what they're going through.

"In fourth grade I missed so many days of school, and I came back and everyone asked: 'Is it contagious?' or said stuff like, 'Stay away from me,' " said 13-year-old Alex Knipp of Des Moines, who underwent chemotherapy for leukemia.

"It's better here because they know how it feels."

Here, cancer is talked about, but because the campers feel so comfortable, it's hardly discussed, said camp director Tom Nielsen.

Instead, the conversations center on jokes, crushes and the costumes for annual skits put on by each cabin.

Alex Stout,15, stood outside the camp's costume closet Tuesday, describing his cabin's skit.

"We're gonna do mad tricks on Boss Hog [their nickname for Nielsen], and something with Star Wars and Michael Jackson," the Bellevue teen said.

Having fun also helps the kids heal, said Dr. Tina Albertson, a pediatric oncologist at Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle and a volunteer at Goodtimes.

"I'm doing my job, but in a way I never get to do at the hospital," Albertson said.

"At work, you don't get to see them happy and playing. Usually when you see them it's for chemo or you're poking them for labs. Here I bandage them up and send them back to the field."

Only Nielsen is paid. The rest of the 81 staffers are volunteers. Nearly a quarter of them are cancer survivors and former campers.

When counselor Gretchen Batcheller, 31, first came to Goodtimes as a camper at 14, it was the first time she ever had been around other children her age with cancer.

"There were huge parts of my life I missed out on, my best friends became my parents and my doctors and nurses," the Seattle woman said. "Camp really did give me back that time I lost. I found my ability to laugh and dance here."

Outside another cabin, 11-year-old Ariel Courtright of Chugiak, Alaska, sat with her friends to watch a sudden lightning storm that canceled their swimming time. As she laughed with friends, Courtright also recalled the moment she found out she had leukemia.

"You don't understand everything. My mom was crying. I remember a lot of shots and I was bald," Courtright said.

Now she wants to be an engineer or architect when she grows up. Or maybe an interior designer or a doctor.

Whatever it is she does, Courtright said, she wants to teach children about cancer.

"I can say to them, 'it's not so hard — I've lived through it.' "

Lisa Chiu: 206-464-2349 or lchiu@seattletimes.com