Hospital promenade helps teenagers concentrate on enjoyable, not diagnoses

For Hailey Fondeur, promenade begins with a chair in a makeshift salon inside Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Einstein.

It’s precisely the place most youngsters prepare for promenade, however not each teenager has the identical journey.

“My child life specialist Katie sent me a message saying, ‘Hey, there’s a prom going on in a few months, do you want to go?’ And I texted her back, ‘Of course I want to go,’” Fondeur mentioned.

For the tenth 12 months, the hospital has reworked a part of its campus right into a promenade for sufferers dwelling with power sicknesses.

“Without this experience, some of our patients unfortunately wouldn’t have the chance to attend a prom,” Hilary Woodward, the director of Patient and Family Programs, mentioned.

Fondeur understands that higher than most.

“It was a really difficult time because when you’re a teenager you’re starting to go through changes and then getting this diagnosis, it kind of stops that,” she mentioned.

Fondeur was recognized with leukemia in December 2022. This evening, she’s capable of concentrate on one thing else: a gown, a date and the long run she as soon as wasn’t certain she’d have.

“Ever since I rang the bell, I graduated high school, I turned 18,” she mentioned.

Now cancer-free, Fondeur is finding out at Lehman College — impressed by the kid life specialist who helped her via remedy.

“I know how these kids feel, and I know that they need some support, and I want to be that support for them,” she mentioned.

Just a few years in the past, folks had been serving to Fondeur via most cancers. Soon, she hopes to do the identical for another person.

But earlier than that future begins, there’s promenade.

“She came to me and said, ‘Hey, I got invited and I want you to come.’ and I said, ‘Absolutely,’” Fondeur’s date Sebastian Ramirez mentioned.

One extra milestone, another reminiscence and another reminder of how far she’s come.

“It makes me feel like, ‘Hey, there is something good at the end of the tunnel,’” Fondeur mentioned.

The promenade is funded via neighborhood donations, serving to make the occasion free for sufferers and their households.