The fight against cancer is hard for so many, but one young Prince George woman knows she's close to the finish line.
"It is always going to be in the back of my mind. But, soon, the battle will be over."
Those are the words from 17-year-old and Prince George resident, Kayla Young, who is currently still fighting against cancer, specifically acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
She's been nothing short of courageous and inspiring.
"I asked, am I going to live? Am I going to die? I was 16-years-old when I was diagnosed, and I didn’t know what my future was," she says. "I thought I had it all planned out, and all of a sudden, it’s like a rollercoaster.”
Young is also an athlete herself, having played rugby as well as football.
Upon hearing of Young and her story, the UNBC Timberwolves Student-Athlete Society named Kayla as their MVP of the month for March and held their Fill the Bus Bottle Drive this afternoon (March 30).
"It's really something amazing that we get the opportunity to do," UNBC women's basketball player Emily Holmes says. "This is our third time doing our actual MVP of the month initiative. A reason we start TSAS was because being a Timberwolf, the community does so much for us and they make us little local superstars, so the least we can do is try to do things like this to try and give back and make those kinds of connections with the community."
Kayla is currently in remission but still has treatments for the next year and a half, including chemotherapy once a month and donations will help her get back and forth to her treatments.
"It's really awesome as a person who was really into sports and everything to have such a big community of sports people come to help me out when I can't necessarily do a lot and they are helping me feel a little bit normal again," Young says. "It's really humbling."
While the final amount of bottles donated and money raised won't be immediately available, Holmes says it's definitely more than the previous year.
