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St. Charles student battles adversity to win full scholarship

St. Charles College student and cancer survivor Lisa Ludwig has just won the Laurentian University’s Jim Fielding Memorial Bursary, which will pay for her next four years of schooling. The 17-year-old's story is full of hardship and hurdles.
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St. Charles College student Lisa Ludwig has has just won the Laurentian University’s Jim Fielding Memorial Bursary, which will pay for her next four years of schooling. A ward of the state, the young woman has faced many adversities in her life, including losing her leg to cancer. Supplied photo.
St. Charles College student and cancer survivor Lisa Ludwig has just won the Laurentian University’s Jim Fielding Memorial Bursary, which will pay for her next four years of schooling.

The 17-year-old's story is full of hardship and hurdles. She has been a child of the ward since she was small, living with a foster family for as long as she can remember.

In Grade 8, while her friends were celebrating graduation, she was having her leg biopsied. Days later, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, the same cancer Terry Fox was stricken with in his teen years.

That last summer before high school was overshadowed by hospital stays, treatments, hair loss and would eventually lead to the loss of her leg.

Due to treatments and a weak immune system, Ludwig started Grade 9 late in the second semester, putting her off track to graduate with her peers.

She took classes through home schooling and summer school to get back on track.

Ludwig worked on two co-operative education placements in Grade 11 and 12 at Health Sciences North in both cancer and mental health wards and at the Children’s Treatment Centre.

She will also graduate next month with a red seal with a Specialist High Skills Major designation in health care.

Throughout high school, she was dealt more grief. Her foster father died of a heart attack when she was in Grade 10, and last year her foster care worker, Nicole Belair, was killed in a house fire in Hanmer.

Ludwig continues to have two hospital visits per year for her osteosarcoma but nothing has stopped this driven student.

A press release said the young woman is excited to start her university years. She has high hopes of becoming a social worker who can help people and give back to a system she has been a part of all her life.

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