As the early morning light streams through my window, I awake to the twinkling of 647 colorful glass beads hanging from my curtain rod. Like a jeweled kaleidoscope, they cast a rainbow on the wall, reminding me of 647 reasons I’m lucky to be alive.

At 20 months, I was diagnosed with a rare cancer, Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. My hospital’s child life program recorded every painful procedure-blood draws, biopsies, spinal taps, chemo, unexpected brain surgery-on a string of beads I “earned” for each experience. A lighthouse bead for diagnosis. A pizza bead for feeling well enough to eat. Each took me a step closer to the coveted final bead: a many-colored, flowered orb welcoming me to remission.

Age 4: I relapsed and urgently needed a bone marrow transplant. But mixed-race patients like me have half the chance of white patients to find a matched donor, and we never did. I spent almost a year in pain and near-isolation. I got high-dose chemo that shrank me to a skeleton, an experimental stem cell transplant, and a cake bead for another birthday. I was lucky to survive.

Ages 5 through 8: I woke up screaming from night terrors, terrified cancer would return. It had nearly killed me twice, and now every day felt like borrowed time. My doctor used beads to reassure me, explaining each treatment and what she’d do if my cancer returned.

Age 11: As Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Boy of the Year for the National Capital Region, I shared my story from ballgames to a 2,000-person gala, explaining how medical advances saved my life, and helping our chapter raise $1.5 million for cancer research. I realized I could pay my good fortune forward by helping others get access to life-saving health care.

Over three decades, my strain of leukemia has gone from certain death to curable-in wealthy countries, that is. While 85% of children in the US survive cancer, under 30% in developing countries do. Even here, kids in high-poverty counties are 18% more likely to die of cancer than kids in wealthier ones. These kids don’t just die of cancer; they die of negligence.

Age 16: I met Olya Kudinenko, a war refugee and founder of Ukraine’s largest children’s cancer charity, Tabletochki, and helped her form a US chapter to raise money and awareness. As our only representative in Washington, l’ve twice addressed the Congressional Childhood Cancer Caucus, raised tens of thousands of dollars to evacuate children from war zones, and am working to get donated x-ray machines into Ukraine. I’ve built a network of supporters for kids with cancer, from the President’s Cancer Moonshot to the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman. I’ve worked with the State Depa1tment on visas for kids coming to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Through my work, we’re now WHO and USAID partners.

There’ve been low moments too – a mother calling from Kyiv, pleading for her son’s life. Doctors had moved him to hospice, but she refused to give up. I imagined my mom’s desperation in her voice, and my heart ached. I sent his records to St. Jude’s, hoping for a better outcome.

Age 17: An ocean away from home, I sat with Varvara, a Ukrainian girl battling cancer, and gazed at her string of cancer beads. We had no common language, but no words were needed. Though I’ve never fled a bombed-out hospital with nothing but a stuffed rabbit and a coat, our beads connected us. She was the same age I was when I was first sick. Her parents said they hoped her hair grows back long, covering her brain surgery scars as my hair covers mine.

Surviving cancer has made me grateful for life’s highs-and even its lows. Simply being alive is a blessing. Survival has made me attuned to people’s hidden struggles, and I never take for granted waking up each morning. It’s also made me passionate about health equity; I know I owe my life to modem medicine and, crucially, access to that medicine. In college I want to study the genetic, socio-economic, and environmental determinants of disease; research treatments; and learn to use policy and the law to help others get access to life-saving medical care. I want to be a changemaker and motivate others to join me in service.