Camp Rainbow an oasis for children with cancer

For five glorious days Alex Nickless hasn’t had to explain the scar that runs the length of her shin or the permanent white patch that covers her right eye.

The shy 14-year-old from Gardiner has spent the past week soaking up the sun, playing and laughing with more than 50 other children of all ages at Camp Jordan in Ellsworth.

She hasn’t had time to think about why doctors took her eye when she was just a toddler. She has endured none of the unwanted pity that sometimes comes from her peers at home who may not know what the scar signifies or why she wears the patch. She has simply been a normal teenager.

“This is the highlight of our summer; this is the one place she feels comfortable,” Alex’s mother, Melanie Nickless, said Thursday at the camp on Branch Lake. “No one stares. All these kids understand, they accept.”

That’s because the campers this week share a solemn bond with Alex: They all have battled or still are battling cancer.

For one week every summer, the American Cancer Society transforms Camp Jordan into Camp Rainbow and invites children like Alex from all over the state and beyond.

Since 1987, the ACS has partnered with Eastern Maine Medical Center and the Ronald McDonald House in Bangor and countless donors to offer the weeklong overnight camp free of charge.

“It’s a way of taking these kids away from needles, away from chemotherapy and treatment,” said Susan Habeeb, an oncology nurse at EMMC who has been a staff nurse at Camp Rainbow for the past eight years. “So we just bring our staff down here for a week.”

Aside from a couple of nurses and physicians and occasional on-site blood tests, Camp Rainbow has everything a summer camp should have: kayaking, arts and crafts, singing, friendship.

And while Camp Jordan, which is offered through the Bangor YMCA, doesn’t open officially until next week, most of its staff members are happy to start a week early and help out at Camp Rainbow.

“This is so special. All these kids really want to be here, and they take full advantage of everything,” said one of the counselors, who goes by the name Jermung. “Some of the other campers might take the place for granted.”

Jermung, 25, from Windham, has been a counselor for four years.

“A lot of them come back each year, so we basically see these kids grow up,” he said while supervising the camp’s ropes course, a popular spot on this particular day. “It’s amazing to see how they have progressed with their treatment.”

The camp’s organizers said the good news this week was that most of the campers are in remission with their cancer, and Alex is no exception.

When she was 2 years old, Alex was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a type of cancer that typically develops in the skeletal muscles of young children.

The most common location for rhabdomyosarcoma is in the head and neck area. For Alex, it was the muscle behind her right ocular cavity. While doctors successfully removed the tumor, they couldn’t save the young girl’s eye.

“That was so hard, trying to explain to a 5-year-old that doctors had to take her eye,” Melanie Nickless said.

Her daughter still has a high risk of developing leukemia, but aside from a few scares, Alex’s cancer has been in remission for several years. This is the fourth year the Nicklesses have come to Camp Rainbow.

“It’s nice to see a lot of the same people that you only get to see once a year,” Alex said while waiting for her turn at one of the ropes course stations.

Habeeb, who has worked in oncology for 26 years at EMMC, said the camp is invaluable to children like Alex who need to be surrounded by others who understand the disease firsthand.

Camp Rainbow, which can accommodate up to 70 children, has not been at capacity for the past few years. That’s good, Habeeb admitted, if it means fewer children are being diagnosed with cancer, but “it’s too bad if there are children out there who just don’t know about this,” she said.

Alex found out about the camp from a clinical nurse who also helped set up another expedition for the teenager later this summer, one a little farther away than Ellsworth.

The teen will fly to New Mexico to stay for 10 days at the Imus Ranch, a working cattle ranch founded in 1999 by radio personality Don Imus and his wife, Dierdre. The facility offers children from all over the country who are dealing with cancer the chance to experience life as a rancher.

Alex said she’s looking forward to riding horses, but for now she’s content to spend time at Camp Rainbow, which will continue into Saturday before the children return home.

“It would be nice if we could stay the whole summer,” Alex said.