How wishes support children with cancer in Canada
Childhood Cancer Awareness Month highlights the realities that children and families face with a pediatric cancer diagnosis. If you’re unfamiliar with the importance of childhood cancer awareness and the meaning behind the gold ribbon read our article on why going gold matters.
Although awareness is vital, it is only the first step. Once we understand the challenges children and families face, the next question becomes: how can we support them?
For children facing cancer, support is needed in many forms. Alongside medical treatment, children need care that supports their physical, emotional, and psychosocial well-being. A wish is a life-changing experience with lasting impact that helps provide that support.
Why are wishes important for children with cancer?
A wish is a vital part of a child’s treatment journey. For children facing cancer, a wish helps restore hope, strength, and resilience during treatment and recovery. Unlike many aspects of a cancer journey that can focus on what cancer takes away, a wish supports children and families by:
- Giving children and their families something meaningful to look forward to.
- Helping children reconnect with who they are beyond their illness.
- Creating opportunities for families to focus on joy, connection, and possibility.
Research suggests these benefits can extend beyond the wish experience itself. The 2018 study, Impact of a Make-A-Wish experience on healthcare utilization by Patel et al. found that wishes can improve adherence to treatment, reduce emergency room visits, and deliver lasting health benefits.
These findings reinforce what many wish families experience firsthand: a wish can be a turning point in a child’s treatment journey. For children like Madelyn, Matty, and Adriana, their wish journey provided support in meaningful and unique ways.
Wishes give children with cancer something positive
The impact of a wish begins long before it is fulfilled. For many children, the anticipation becomes an important part of the wish journey itself. Looking ahead to something exciting can help shift focus away from appointments and treatments.
Five-year-old Madelyn knows that feeling well.
Diagnosed with leukemia at just two years old, she faced blood transfusions, frequent hospital visits, and a stroke from which she has fully recovered. But over time, treatment changed her. The outgoing child who once loved exploring new places began to withdraw and became fearful that every car ride might end at the hospital.
But everything changed once she was prescribed a wish to go to her favourite theme park.
For Madelyn, having a wish to look forward to helped bring positivity to difficult days and reminded her family that joy was ahead. Through treatment and recovery, the anticipation of her wish became a source of hope.
Read Madelyn’s Full Wish Story
Wishes help children feel like themselves again
Childhood cancer can affect every aspect of a child’s life, including the activities, interests, and experiences that help define who they are.
For 17-year-old Matty, that identity was closely tied to baseball.
At age 12, Matty was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour. Following a biopsy, he slipped into a coma. When he woke up, he had lost the ability to walk, swallow, and talk. He underwent chemotherapy, radiation, surgeries, and extensive rehabilitation to relearn the skills he had once taken for granted.
Through it all, one goal remained constant: returning to the game he loved.
Matty was prescribed a wish to throw the first pitch at a Toronto Blue Jays game. When the day finally arrived, Matty stepped onto the mound in front of thousands of fans.
For Matty, the wish was an opportunity to reconnect with a part of himself beyond his diagnosis. In that moment, he wasn’t defined by treatment or recovery. He was simply Matty, doing what he loved. Returning to base
Wishes support families affected by childhood cancer
Childhood cancer impacts the entire family. Parents become caregivers, siblings adjust to changing routines and everyday life quickly starts to revolve around medical appointments, hospital visits, and treatment schedules.
Adriana’s family experienced this firsthand.
Just before her fourth birthday, Adriana was diagnosed with leukemia. Her treatment journey lasted more than two years and affected every aspect of family life. Her younger brother, who was only 18 months old at the time, spent much of his early childhood separated from his parents while they focused on Adriana’s care.
After treatment, Adriana’s wish to feast with her favourite princesses gave the family an opportunity to celebrate how far they’d come together.
As her mom, Alexandra, shared:
For Adriana’s family, her wish was more than a celebration. It was an opportunity to make new memories, reconnect, and look toward the future. By creating space for joy, connection, and possibility, the experience helped strengthen family bonds, build resilience, and remind them of what was possible beyond cancer.
Read Adriana’s full wish story
Why more wishes are needed
Madelyn, Matty, and Adriana were able to access the life-changing power of a wish, but today, more than 1,600 children are still waiting for theirs.
Every wish is made possible through the generosity of donors, volunteers, partners, and supporters across the country as Make-A-Wish Canada receives no government funding. This Childhood Cancer Awareness Month you can help fulfil a wish prescription for a child facing cancer.
