The US president vowed to ‘end childhood cancer’. But his administration is dismantling the search for a cure and sending families scrambling for treatment
For seven years, Jenn Janosko cared for children with cancer on the ninth floor of New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital.
It’s the happiest sad place she knows.
The walls of the pediatric inpatient unit are covered in colorful children’s artwork. The floor curves in a circle: older kids do laps pushing their IV poles, while the younger ones trundle around on wagons.
There’s a playroom in which they hold themed events – bingo nights, slime nights, candy-cart nights – to inject some fun into a space otherwise sated with illness and death. One year Janosko, who worked as a nurse, dressed up as a blow-up cow to make the kids laugh.
