Rachel was affected by an Askin’s tumor of the spinal cord during her senior year of high school.  She began studying architecture at college, but after the recurrence of the cancer, decided architecture wasn’t want she really wanted.  After eight years of alternating treatment and college studies, she is now beginning her first year of graduate school.  She is studying art therapy and counseling at Southern Illinois University, hoping to help other patients the way art helped her during her treatments.  She reminds new patients “everyone’s situation is different; there is no right or wrong way to handle what you’re going through.”