alt Hacker NewsI'm ALL survivor. Treated (I think - it's been a while) approximately from Spring '00 through 2003, a mix of middle school and high school.
The treatment absolutely has a lasting impact - often due to the severe side effects of treatment. But even with notable impacts to short term memory and deep concentration I was still able to get a CS degree and work as a SWE.
Something that's shocking to me: the chronic absenteeism rate nationally is about 30%. I barely hit the threshold for that (missing 10% of school) number while going through cancer treatment. It makes me very worried about the direction of the US that so many kids are missing as much school a cancer patient.
It should also be noted that the treatment process is a big burden on families, who will probably not want their child be alone for extended hospital stays, but may need to for work.
To be clear, chronic absenteeism is defined by the US Dept of Education as: "students missing 10% or more of school". Eh, that is one day every two weeks. That's not so bad. Most kids can still get a pretty good education at that level.