Erin Chack, then 20, experienced cancer déjà vu back in 2010, as she was found to be in remission and cancer free of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, her mom Joanne was several floors away at MSK that day, beginning her first round of chemo for the same diagnosis. Today both Erin and Joanne are healthy and cancer free, and finding support in one another. Erin is a senior writer at Buzzfeed and recently published a collection of essays entitled This Is Really Happening, where she also recalls the experience.

Lulu was just 47 days old when a doctor diagnosed her with Retinoblastoma, a rare pediatric cancer. It was considered a near death-sentence in her hometown of Wenzhou, China. Her parents, Ti Yang and Feifei Lin, desperate for their daughter not to experience the same fate as her father and lose her eyes to the tumor, sought a specialized treatment called intra-arterial chemotherapy to preserve the little remaining vision little Lulu had. Her parents remain hopeful that Lulu will have a productive life and be able to continue treatment in America. “Lulu’s eyes are so fragile and her vision has deteriorated so much,” her mother said. “We can’t afford taking any more risks.”