In 2013, Kerstyn Young was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia when she was only two-years-old.
After two and a half years of treatment, Jodye Young wanted something available for her daughter to feel accomplished after finishing chemotherapy.
She called it the “chemo bell”.
“I knew that at the end of chemo treatments people usually rang a bell to signify that they were done. So I asked if they had one and they said that they had never had one and it hurt my heart because so many kids before her were not able to ring that bell and to get that feeling of what it feels like to be done,” Young said.
She searched all of Lubbock before finding the bell Kerstyn donated to the Oncology Center at Joe Arrington Cancer Center.
“I had broke down in the middle of Hobby Lobby and the manager didn’t know what to do with that. It was because it was important to me and important to her and so I had just turned and there it was,” Young said.
Kerstyn was the first to ring the bell and since then even more kids who have fought cancer have rang the same bell.
On Friday, the Young family will celebrate a year since Kerstyn finished treatment and the moment she became cancer-free.
