As he fights cancer, 12-year-old Sergio Camos Jr. of Smiths Grove travels and enjoys exciting experiences through the Sunshine Kids Foundation, such as the Texas Hill Country Adventure.

From June 6-12, Sergio was given the opportunity to travel to Texas for a week of adventure. Patients attended from eight hospitals, including Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, where Sergio goes for treatments. He and the other children, ages 12-18, were able to experience many things, including tubing the San Marcos River, horseback riding at Mittman Ranch and Sergio’s favorite part of the trip, a visit to Schlitterbahn Waterpark. Sergio said he had a lot of fun on this trip and others he has taken through the foundation.

“I’ve met a lot of people from different places,” Sergio said. “My favorite thing is meeting new kids who have cancer like me.”

Sergio was diagnosed with a brainstem glioma when he was 9 years old. He has been going to Kosair Children’s Hospital for treatments since his diagnosis, and it was there that Sergio and his parents found out about the Sunshine Kids Foundation. For Sergio and his family, opportunities through the foundation have profoundly affected their lives. Sergio’s father, Sergio Camos Sr., said he has been able to have fun and make connections with other children. His mother, Hellen Camos, said it has helped Sergio through his illness.

“In the beginning he didn’t really understand there were other kids that were sick like him,” Hellen Camos said.

This was the 26th annual trip of its kind led by the Sunshine Kids Foundation, a national nonprofit organization, and sponsored by police departments, fire department, sheriff’s offices and other supporters. Jennifer Wisler, director of children’s services at the foundation, said these trips give kids the opportunity to get away from the hospital stays and cancer treatments and to experience a once in a lifetime trip, surrounded by kids who also are battling cancer.

The trip is of no cost to the kids or their parents and each child has a nurse chaperone. Sergio’s nurse chaperone, Veronica Cook, R.N., was someone he was already familiar with from his treatments at Kosair. Cook said she takes care of him in the outpatient setting and sometimes administers his treatments when he comes in.

Cook was in charge of four children from the hospital where she works and made sure they felt comfortable during the plane ride and throughout the trip. This was Sergio’s first plane ride and he said that while he was nervous at first, he was excited about it too. Cook said after comfort, her main responsibility was to make sure the kids had fun. 

‘He’s very quiet, but during this trip I think he really got comfortable, especially with me and the other three that he attended with,” Cook said. “I saw this kid open up and smile, laugh out loud. He danced to music, he had a blast.”

Sergio is active in the camps and trips the Sunshine Kids Foundation offers. He more recently attended a Sunshine Kids camp in Indiana where he said he zip lined, practiced archery and participated in a color run. Cook saw Sergio there and said he was still smiling.

“You could just feel how excited he was about attending that Sunshine camp,” Cook said. “You could just see it all over him.”