WEYBURN – The Weyburn Comprehensive School staff named Grade 12 student Cooper Walbaum to receive the Tom Zandee Humanitarian Award at the school’s 60th annual awards night on Monday.
In her last awards night, student services coordinator Joanne Jensen spoke of how Walbaum has handled his battle with leukemia since he was first diagnosed at the age of 15, facing it with a positive attitude right from the start.
“When he gets his final treatment in July, he will have spent 974 days battling leukemia,” said Jensen, noting when his family felt down or struggled, it was always Cooper who brought them back up.
He was so thankful for the treatment he received, he did fundraising for the oncology units in Saskatoon and Regina, raising over $5,500, split between the two facilities.
Jensen related how he described to her all of the treatments, the blood transfusions and tests, and noted his parents told her how he never ever complained about any of it. When he’s taking his chemotherapy, sometimes he can only get two hours of sleep at night due to the steroids he’s on.
In spite of this, he still gets out to play baseball on an Estevan team and gets good marks for his courses at school.
After a hiatus of 21 days, he came back to school classes in person, including taking 12 credits in order to be able to graduate this year.
His motto has always been to appreciate the moments you have, and don’t sweat the small stuff, said Jensen, and live life to the fullest.
