As the tear-stained washcloth hit the bathroom floor, Emily Gordon knew her nine-year-old daughter wasn’t going to give up.
Just a few hours earlier, they had been driving home from a post-doctor’s appointment ice cream run when her phone rang. The pediatrician’s voice echoed through the car: Vara James had cancer. Gordon immediately disconnected the phone. The test results had returned and identified the mass enveloping her right kidney as Wilms tumor — a growth usually found in younger boys — that needed to be removed as soon as possible.
“There was no way to be a parent and protect her from the diagnosis,” Gordon said. “There was no way to stop that. It just felt like a car crash. Immediately our whole world changed.”
The next morning — a Wednesday — at 7 a.m. would be the first of many trips back and forth between home and the C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital. As a third grader who was suddenly plucked out of the classroom and plopped into a hospital bed, James knew something was out of the ordinary, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“I remember being like, ‘Well, I don’t know what’s happening,I’m old enough to know something weird is happening, but I’m not old enough to understand it,’” James said.
By Friday, she only had one kidney. While her classmates were at recess, James was sedated in a hospital bed. During the surgery, the tumor ruptured, causing cancer particles to spread throughout her body. Following that surgery, James had 45 doses of chemo and six days of radiation that left her feeling depleted, battling chronic leg pain and persistent fatigue.
Through it all, Gordon continued working her full-time job, shifting from constant travel to a remote position. Dealing with the stress of managing both her daughter’s illness and her team of 350 employees, Gordon created a Facebook group to keep friends and family updated on the goings-on of the seventh floor of the hospital. Always ending with the phrase “Better vs. worse,” those updates would later be printed out to fill seven binders documenting their journey.
One day, after treatment, James’ neuro-oncologist, Dr. Carl Koschmann, offered to take her climbing once her treatment was done. James had never been rock climbing before, and post-chemotherapy, her body was smaller and weaker. Luckily, she had the literal and metaphorical support system she needed to get her up the wall. Working as her belayer (the person who manages a climber’s safety rope), Dr. Koschmann guided her up the wall, recommending which holds to grab with which limbs and providing an additional push when needed.
On her first attempt, she made it halfway up the wall, on her second, three-quarters. As she was lowered back down and her feet hit the mat, numb hands and heaving lungs were disregarded as a smile crept its way onto her face.
This was something that she could do; this was something she could get better at.
She quickly realized that this was something that other kids with cancer could do, too. It started out small: bringing a friend or two to come climb on the weekends. Suddenly, more people wanted in, and James found herself at the helm of a ship with wind in its sails.
Partnering with local climbing gym Planet Rock, James, Gordon and Dr. Koschmann established Rock Cancer, a nonprofit that hosts monthly climbing sessions for kids with cancer or a history of cancer. In this space, these participants aren’t defined by the size of their tumor or the length of hospital stay — they’re just kids spending time with other kids who understand them.
Every third Friday of the month, the Ann Arbor session begins with introductions and an icebreaker question. Starting in the fall of 2024, they introduced a yoga flow before the climbing begins. Led by Aria Hutchinson, a medical student at Wayne State University, kids and parents alike move through roughly 10 minutes of breath work and movement.
“We get to slow down, clear our minds and then do a little bit of internal work while we do that external work,” Hutchinson said.
Following that, participants can choose to either continue with a longer yoga session or head to the walls for climbing. If they choose to climb, they can pick between bouldering (climbing shorter, technically challenging walls) or traditional climbing with a rope — either with an auto-belay system or with an experienced belayer to guide them.
What started in Ann Arbor quickly caught national attention. Within months of an interview on NBC Nightly News, people from across the country started reaching out, wanting to establish their own branches of Rock Cancer. Currently there are locations in Philadelphia, New York City and Louisville, creating a network of support that spans across state lines, with some families driving up to three hours to participate.
But James’ personal journey with cancer wasn’t over. During a follow-up appointment nine months into remission, doctors discovered a seven-millimeter mass of mutated Wilms cells on her left lung. James felt her stomach drop.
“I feel like shit,” James said. “I’ve already done this. Why do I have to do it again?”
This type of relapse was unprecedented, with no pre-set treatment to follow. Gordon reached out to specialists across the country, consulting with doctors in Washington D.C. and leaning on support from other families affected by cancer, all while trying to ignore the fact that she was spending time at stoplights writing her daughter’s eulogy in her head. But James knew what this experience felt like, and she wasn’t going down easy.
“I really admire that about my younger self, that attitude of being like one of the worst things that could possibly happen to anybody in their lifetime happened to you,” James said. “And you were really just like ‘all right, I’m gonna do it.’”
After multiple rounds of specialized treatment and 10 months of active treatment, James returned to both school and climbing, starting part time and building her way up to full time.
Rock Cancer continues to impact the lives of those like eight-year-old twins Zachary and Christian Hodge. While their third-grade classmates are learning games like groundies or four square, the Hodge twins can be found scaling walls with bat-shaped chalk bags attached at the hip, confidently calling for their belayer to lower them down.
For Zachary — who is fighting a stage four neuroblastoma relapse — Rock Cancer provides more than a place to build strength and endurance. Even on days where school is out of the question, he can be found on the climbing wall later that night.
“[Rock Cancer] gives him something to look forward to outside of just being his disease,” said Rebecca Hodge, Zachary’s mom.
This is exactly what James envisioned when she first started the program seven years ago.
“I get to hang out with kids who are going through similar things that I went through, or who are in remission and have questions or just want to be normal,” James said. “That’s why I did it, so they have a space where they’re around people their age who know what their situation is.”
On days Zachary isn’t at the climbing gym, he could be found driving to or from Pennsylvania for treatment. At four years old he was first diagnosed with neuroblastoma. At eight, he’s fighting for his life against persistent relapse.
But every third Friday of the month, Zachary and Christian grab their chalk bags off the shelf in the garage before piling into the car. Once they arrive, the boys make their way to the back of the gym for introductions and stretching before getting on the wall.
What began as one person’s journey through illness has transformed into a nationwide movement of hope. Through Rock Cancer, James has created more than just a climbing program — she’s built a community where young cancer patients can find strength, both on and off the wall.
“I really could have died, but I didn’t,” James said. “It makes me so grateful for life. Even if I don’t sound like it all the time, but I cherish my life so much.”
To donate to or otherwise support Rock Cancer, visit Rock-cancer.org.
