Montana Children's: New Warrior Bell rings in wellness for young patients

Six months after receiving his final cancer treatment there, 10-year-old Wacee Simenson of Chinook returned to Montana Children’s pediatric center in Kalispell on Thursday — the last day of 2020 — to celebrate the dedication of the new Warrior Bell that has been donated to the center in his name.

Diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma in 2018, doctors found a mass in Simenson’s chest the size of a football. But now, two and a half years later, he’s finally been able to say goodbye to the seemingly endless treatments and get back to living a normal life. The excitement he and his family feels is something they and the doctors and nurses at Montana Children’s want other patients to experience when they get their chance to ring the bell at the end of their treatments.

“It’s such a monumental thing to be able to say you are done with therapy. It’s important for the patient, for the family and the community,” said Courtney Lyle, a pediatric oncologist and hematologist at Montana Children’s. “Being able to ring the bell signifies the ability for all who have been involved to say they ‘congratulations, you’ve done it.’ With this bell, every kid will get to have that experience when they are done with therapy and we will be there to help them celebrate.”

SIMENSON SPENT the first few days at Montana Children’s after being diagnosed in 2018 before transferring to Denver. He spent 45 days there as the chemotherapy shrunk the mass in his chest to an undetectable size in just 30 days.

It was during his time in Denver that the idea for the donation of the Warrior Bell got started.

“They had a Warrior Bell on the floor he was on in Denver and we got to see several kids get to ring it while we were there,” his mom, Tomi Simenson, said. “Every time someone got to ring the bell, they lined the hall and cheered and played music and made a big celebration of it and Wacee thought that was pretty cool. It gave him a little bit of hope that he would get to do it when he finished his treatment.”

Wacee returned to Montana for the rest of his treatments, which ended in June. His family considered making a special trip back to Denver so Wacee could ring the Warrior Bell there, but when they found out that Montana Children’s had no such bell, they decided to change that.

“The more time we spent here, getting to know the nurses and doctors, we decided that we really wanted to celebrate with them,” Tomi said. “They had seen us at our high moments and our low moments. When we found out they didn’t have a warrior bell here, we just knew that this was something we wanted to do.”

With the dedication of the new Warrior Bell, every patient that completes their cancer treatment at Montana Children’s will get to share that special feeling that Wacee and his family got to share with the nurses and doctors.

Reporter Jeremy Weber may be reached at 758-4446 or jweber@dailyinterlake.com.