Art therapy has established benefits for children with cancer, such as helping them to deal with pain, nausea and anxiety. But it’s also just plain fun — and having fun should be a part of every child’s day.
Thirty young people part of a program called the Children’s Cancer Fund of New Mexico, and who range in age from 3 to 17 years old, had tons of it thanks to a just-finished mural they created at the University of New Mexico Hospital. The phenomenal seascape has UFOs, stars, space dust, rocket ships and a “lunar hospital,” and is on a wall in the hospital’s pediatric infusion area waiting room.
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Children with Cancer are Still Children
Children diagnosed with cancer face unique challenges, such as missing out on experiences that seem essential to growing up. Riding the bus to school, playing on sports teams, making friends, having their first crushes, discovering how they like to express themselves — these all constitute what it means to “be a kid.”
Missing out on such childhood rituals due to frequent doctors’ appointments, lengthy hospital stays, and plain not feeling well can be really hard, and have lasting effects on kids’ self-esteem and mental health, say experts. Offering these children opportunities to engage in fun projects while they’re going through a not-so-fun time can help to mitigate this.
RELATED: We Still Don't Know How to Handle Teens with Cancer
The Benefits of Art Therapy
Art, Dancing, Singing, Comedy -- How Survivors Find Joy
- What Still Brings You Joy? Your Emotional Health is So Important to Living With Cancer
- Dancing Her Way to Recovery – How Zumba Helped Cancer Survivor Vera Trifunovich Cope
- How A Desert Storm Veteran From Georgia With Brain Cancer Expressed Himself Through Beautiful Artwork – Honoring the Life of Columbus Cook
- Singing His Way Through Cancer Treatment — Keep Living, Says Tripp Hornick
- Jenny Saldana Found Humor in Her Cancer Journey, And Turned it into a “Dramedy”
Art therapy can be cathartic for all ages. Three-time cancer survivor Marianne Duquette Cuozzo told SurvivorNet that when she was first diagnosed with cancer at age 28, she hasd a small art studio in her home that became an emotional refuge.
“I’d go in the studio, and I had these huge pieces of charcoal,” Duquette Cuozzo recalled. “And I would do these really angry charcoal drawings, and I’d roll them up and stuff them under the couch. No one was meant to see them because it was just for me and, my cathartic getting out my anger.”
After a double mastectomy, her work began to reflect a deeply personal evolution of body image and sexuality. “I'm doing the best I can to feel beautiful in this new body, " Cuozzo said.
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