Tiffany Sage

Personal Story &
Pediatric Cancer Advocacy

(Growing- Keep Scrolling)

Professional Career
& Consulting

(Coming Soon)

Expertise in Enablement & Change— even through life’s harshest challenges

Chances are, if you’re here, your life suddenly feels unmoored from reality…

That’s exactly how I felt during my five-year-old son’s leukemia induction, as I stared out his third-story hospital window into the busy streets of West Palm Beach. Our family seemed isolated from the normalcy of the world below, separated by an invisible but permanent barrier.

I pictured us landing on an island just off the shore of the edge of the world. I came to dub it Childhood Cancer Island. From here, we could see what we were missing from the mainland we’d abruptly left—but we were castaways, with no expectation of immediate rescue.

What I didn’t realize in that moment was this:

While Childhood Cancer Island was new to my family, it was already populated by thousands of others. They’d been here so long they no longer saw themselves as castaways. They saw themselves as Veterans. Guides. Survivors.

Or maybe most importantly—family to all others who have to walk this terrible path.

My five-year-old son fought a perilous battle against Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Along the way, he faced even more terrifying foes: Sepsis. Mucormycosis. Midnight ambulance rides between hospitals.

I’ve heard a prominent infectious disease doctor tell me to prepare for the unthinkable—that my child might not survive a severe infection. Months of our lives spent living to the rhythm of the PICU and piercing chirp of the occluded IV line.

We liquidated the life my spouse and I spent decades dreaming of and years building.

We moved to another state on the slimmest hope that my son’s care might have a small, but measurably better chance of success.

In August 2024, after 821 days of cancer treatment, he rang the bell.

He started First Grade the next day.

We are now almost a year past that moment. There has been sunshine. There have been clouds.

The difference now is that I no longer feel isolated.

I’ve become one of the Guides. What I create is akin to offering you a seat next to me at our cancer family community table. I’ll tell you my perspective—developed from our experience and from my professional career in change mangement and enablement. Keep in your pocket what works for you. My aim is simple.

But one thing is certain: we still live on Childhood Cancer Island.

I hope you feel a little less alone.

Best,
Tiffany