Tanya Salomon

Nyah's Story
 

My daughter Nyah can be described as funny, tenacious, smart and quiet (until she gets to know you).

On September 26th, 2017, our little girl of 10 years old was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

The biggest challenge we faced was that she was at an age where her world was meant to be expanding. Instead, world had to become very small and developing social groups was more challenging. My heart would break when she would miss out on everyday normal pre-teen activities like when she couldn't go to friend’s birthday parties had when she had to drop out of soccer.

We found community, however, with Light The Night and Team Nyah was created! We didn't even want to attend in 2017 as Nyah was only 4 weeks into treatment but she is so tenacious that she wanted to walk. That first year she only made it about 200 metres but she walked! While it was overwhelming we also quickly realized we were not alone and there was so much support in the community. Nyah was in different phases of her treatment each year and in 2019 she was able to complete the full walk!

Nyah's last treatment was on January 15, 2020 and she recently had her first day of no medications, a very impactful milestone!

We’d recommend supporting Light The Night because you are supporting people like Nyah and other patients by looking for a cure. Knowing that there was a community of people doing the walk for her and other patients, current and future, meant so much.