The stress of college is a more than enough for most Towson students to handle, but for Frankie Knight, a senior family studies major, even cancer was never too much for her to handle.
Two years ago, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. But rather than take some time off from school to fully concentrate on her health, Frankie continued her studies at Towson throughout her treatment.
“I have really supportive friends and family,” she said.
Frankie said that she received a tremendous amount of support from friends, family and faculty at Towson, however, she still felt alone.
“I felt like I needed a person to talk too,” she said. “I was so stressed out all the time because I had so much on my mind. I felt like I was a towering step back from
everyone.”
Frankie said that she visited the counseling center and attended a cancer support group, but that she never felt comfortable.
“I went to the counseling center, but I felt like there was a stigma,” she said. “It didn’t help me because what I was dealing was a health issue, not a mental health issue.”
She said there seemed to be no place for a young women like her, struggling with a severe medical issue, to go to talk to someone who knew how she felt on campus. So she decided to do something about it.
“That’s how I came up with the idea for Girl 2 Girl,” she said. “I thought there [needed] to be a place [for women to talk] that was just for medical issues.”
This semester Frankie founded Girl 2 Girl, a support group for women on-campus who a dealing with a medical issues. Frankie hopes that in the Spring there will be enough participants so that each women can be paired up with someone in the group to serve as their mentor.
“We are going to be mentoring each other,” she said. “[The group] is only females because women’s issues are very specific.”
Frankie said that women with any type of medical issue are welcome, even something that is as simple as acne.
“The idea is to get rid of certain stigmas with medical issues so they know they know are not the only girl on-campus dealing with this,” she said.
Frankie credits Disability Support Services (DSS) for helping her receive the accommodations necessary so she could continue school while receiving treatment.
“I was the first student to go to DSS who doesn’t have a learning disability,” she said. “They made it so that I had all the same support as someone with a learning disability.”
Those accommodations allowed Frankie to miss an extended amount of school for doctors appointments and not receive a penalty.
Frankie has been cancer free since September. She wants all girls on-campus struggling with a medical issue to know that they are not alone.
“I don’t want girls to feel like they are the only one’s,” she said. “They can still go to school and still have a life.”
If you are interested in being apart of Girl to Girl, please email Maria Lilly mlilly@ towson.edu with the subject “Girl 2 Girl.”