Archery Bonds 13 Year-old Cancer Patient With Local Men

Goosepond Monster · Apr 18, 2013

This is a pretty outstanding story...

Thirteen-year-old Hannah Maupin grasps a blue string attached to a large bell and pulls it downward sharply, again and again, sending a celebratory “Ding! Ding! Ding!” through a long hallway at the IU Health Proton Therapy Center.

The slender, azure-eyed youngster was signaling the completion of her 28th and final radiation treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that began in her lymph nodes and has since spread to other parts of her body.

A black bandana covers her head, which used to be adorned with wavy, dark brown hair but is now nearly bald. On her face is a smile that sparkles like a chest of diamonds.

Among those surrounding her, and sharing her big moment, are three burly, middle-age men — Steve Chambers, Doug Fritch and Scott Mitchell — who are beaming too as they clap for Hannah.

“She’s a phenomenal little girl and has been an absolute blessing to us,” said Chambers, who recently finished treatments at the center for rectal cancer. “We’ve all fallen in love with her and have adopted her as our own. Her upbeat spirit helped me get through my treatments.”

“I’m sorry, I get choked up just talking about her,” Mitchell said. “She’s really touched me. She’s been through a lot, but her faith is so strong.”

It was five weeks ago that one of the center’s technicians, Frankie Willbanks, asked Hannah about her interests, and she answered that she’d always wanted to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow.

Willbanks approached Chambers, who is a member of the Bloomington Archery Club. When Chambers heard that Hannah had an interest in archery, he gave Willbanks his phone number and asked him to give it to Hannah’s mother, Leah Maupin.

The next day, Leah called Chambers, who invited her and Hannah to the club’s regular Saturday shoot at its facility at 6850 W. May Road. Hannah showed up, eager to learn.

“I tried all the bows, but they were too heavy for me,” she said. “The lightest bow they had was a 30-pounder.”

But Hannah is not easily discouraged. The next week, she and her mom were at the club’s Wednesday shoot. Members treated her like a long-lost daughter. One of them let her use a 20-pound bow, and Fritch and Chambers taught her the bow-shooting basics.

“I learned that you need to pull the string with your back, not your arm,” Hannah said. “You need to keep both eyes open and rest your fingers against the corner of your mouth when you draw the string back. Then, when you release the string, you have to let it go rather than following the string with your hand.”

Chambers said she was a quick study.

“She made magnificent progress in just five weeks,” he said. “In fact, she got so good that she started making us look bad.”

It didn’t take Hannah long to graduate from shooting at targets to aiming at foam animals 20 yards away.

“My favorite target was the cougar,” she said, flashing a bright smile. “The hardest was the alligator, because it’s crouching down low and doesn’t give you much surface to aim at.”

Fritch has a 24-year-old son who was diagnosed with leukemia eight years ago but is now in remission.

“The Lord gave me my son back, and I feel I owe it to him to help others — especially someone like Hannah,” he said. “Maybe archery has helped her get her mind off her treatments and speeded up her healing process.”

Last Wednesday, the men presented Hannah with an official club sweatshirt. Chambers gave her a quiver filled with a dozen custom-made arrows and a shooting glove. Thurman Fuller, another member, presented her with an arm guard.

Mitchell is crafting a custom-made bow for Hannah, which he hopes to mail to her next month. Hannah selected the wood for the bow — a piece cut and hewn from a black walnut tree by her great-grandfather, plus a piece of maple and purple heartwood.

“These guys have been great to me,” Hannah said. “I can’t imagine any nicer people anywhere. It will be sad to leave Bloomington. I will miss them.”

Because Leah was born and raised in Bloomington and her mother and several cousins still live here, Leah and Hannah will return to Bloomington from time to time — during which time Hannah can hook up once again with her bow-shooting buds.

Leah admitted it’s hard to find words to express her gratitude to the archery club members.

“They’ve been a huge blessing in Hannah’s life,” she said. “They gave her something to look forward to every Wednesday. And they’re so warm and kind — real salt-of-the-earth kind of people.”

Leah said she’s convinced the merging of the men’s lives and the life of her ailing daughter was no accident.

“The archery club meets only six weeks during the winter, which were the same six weeks that Hannah got her treatments,” she said. “I feel this was a blessing that was meant to be.”
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tacklebox · Apr 18, 2013

WOW absolutely LOVE IT!!!!! Thank you for sharing!

Archery Bonds 13 Year-old Cancer Patient With Local Men

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Archery Bonds 13 Year-old Cancer Patient With Local Men

Goosepond Monster Die Hard Bowhunter

tacklebox Grizzled Veteran

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