GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOWO) — At 17, Brooke Hibbitts was a cancer patient at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids. Today, she works in the same hospital as a pediatric oncology nurse, caring for children facing many of the same fears she once experienced.

Hibbitts was diagnosed as a teenager with synovial sarcoma, a rare type of soft-tissue cancer that often develops in the arms or legs. Her diagnosis came as a shock after what she described as an otherwise healthy childhood.

“I was a perfectly healthy girl. Like, it was a complete shock to us,” Hibbitts told WOOD-TV. “And I did eight rounds of chemo.”

Her treatment included chemotherapy, surgery and radiation directed at a tumor on her shoulder. After roughly 10 months of treatment, Hibbitts was cancer-free.

During that time, she developed close relationships with the nurses and other members of her medical team. They would occasionally joke with her about one day returning to the hospital as a nurse.

“All the nurses would joke like, ‘Oh, are you going to become a nurse? You can come back,'” Hibbitts recalled.

At the time, she wasn’t interested.

“And I was like, ‘Absolutely not. I will not be stepping foot back in this building when I’m done,'” she said with a laugh.

But her plans eventually changed.

After graduating from nursing school in December 2025, Hibbitts applied for a position at the same hospital where she had received her cancer treatment. She began working there in March 2026 as a pediatric oncology nurse.

The transition has brought an unusual reunion with members of the medical team who once treated her. Some of those former caregivers are now her colleagues, including Dr. Beth Kurt, who treated Hibbitts during her cancer treatment.

Kurt said watching Hibbitts return to the hospital in a nursing role has been particularly meaningful.

“It’s so fun to watch that growth and watch her really achieve her dreams,” Kurt said.

For Hibbitts, the experience of being a teenage cancer patient gives her a perspective that cannot be learned solely in nursing school.

Every interaction with a young patient can remind her of what it was like to receive a frightening diagnosis at an age when most teenagers are focused on school, friends and their futures.

“I feel like I’ve been able to provide a lot of hope for kids,” Hibbitts said.

She also wants her own experience to challenge the fear that can accompany a childhood cancer diagnosis.

“When I was 17 and I heard the word cancer, I immediately kind of thought like, ‘Oh my gosh, this isn’t going to end well,'” Hibbitts said. “And that is so not true. We see so many patients make it through and thrive.”

Her story comes during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September, which highlights the experiences of young cancer patients and survivors while drawing attention to research and efforts to develop treatments for childhood cancers.

For Hibbitts, the message is also personal. The hospital that once represented months of chemotherapy, surgery and uncertainty has become her workplace — and a place where she now gets to offer other young patients something she once needed herself: hope.