Cancer Diagnosis Inspires Career Path For Survivor

Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter

FT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) - Many college freshmen are unsure about what they want to do with their lives. But one South Florida survivor has her future planned out after receiving a devastating diagnosis at just 14 years old.

Lauren Bendesky looks like your typical college student. The Coral Springs native goes to class, does her homework and even plans to join a sorority at Washington University in Saint Louis.

But some parts of her life are anything but typical.

"I'm on a trial currently where I take oral medication every day. I go every month to Saint Louis to the doctor there," she explained to CBS 4's Lauren Pastrana.

Bendesky's health regimen is a result of the diagnosis she received while she was just a high school freshman. Lauren had stage four neuroblastoma, which spread through her entire body.

"It was definitely grueling and scary experience," she said.

Lauren's experience with the frightening disease started when she was just a 14-year-old student at Coral Glades High School.

"My mother came in one day and just started tickling me out of nowhere. We felt what we thought was a mass, but it wasn't positive that's what it was," she said. "At the end of freshman year I went into the hospital and they found a 15.5 lb. mass in my abdomen."

She had surgery to remove the cancerous mass and began 18 months of intense treatment, including chemotherapy, radiation and a stem cell transplant.

The former dancer spent her entire sophomore year of high school in isolation.

"It became the new normal. Being in the hospital and chemotherapy seemed difficult, but staying positive and going through it really helped because then I could do it easier. I had to go through it anyway, so might as well do it with a positive outlook," she said.

Lauren channeled that positive energy into her school work. She took online classes and managed to stay on track. When she returned to Coral Glades for her junior year, she picked up right where she left off.

A year later, she was named the valedictorian of her senior class.

"I was proud of myself for being able to go through such a difficult time junior and senior year and still being able to come out at the top of my class senior year," she said.

When asked whether she ever wondered, "Why me?", she responded, "At the beginning I did a lot. But I think that there was so much positive that came out of it."

It was during her cancer fight that Lauren decided she wanted to become a pediatric oncologist.

She's already interned at a cancer center where she studied the kind of treatment that kills the cancer she had.

Lauren says her personal connection to the illness will help her give compassionate care to her future patients, patients she hopes will one day all be survivors.

"Surviving cancer is a big thing, yes. Being able to overcome it. I'm not cured, I'm treated and able to live life. I think passing on the lessons I've learned is part of what makes me a survivor and helping those currently facing cancer and other diseases," she said.

In addition to beating cancer, Lauren was also awarded the Silver Knight Award for Science in Broward, as well as a scholarship from the Chiera Family Foundation.

She's already been accepted into the medical school at Washington University. It's a non-binding acceptance so she can still keep her options open.

To top it all off, she was a 2014 national ambassador for the St. Baldrick's Foundation and is working to create the Lauren's Love Foundation, a non-profit organization that will focus on providing care for children currently in treatment for pediatric cancer and ultimately fund research in the future.

She says the foundation is working on providing décor and toys for kids in the hospital so they can feel comfortable during their long stays, similar to the ones she endured.