Kids With Cancer Have Prom, Too

June is prom season at high schools across the country.

But what about children who are in the hospital being treated for cancer?

They have prom, too, as Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez discovered when she visited New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

With donated tuxes, dresses, make-up and prizes, the pediatric cancer patients enjoyed their annual Pediatrics Spring Prom to help them forget about cancer for a few hours and celebrate.

Eight-year-old Megan Przekurat attended, despite receiving a high dose of chemotherapy recently, according to her mother, Donna Przekurat.

"I'm surprised she's actually walking around," Donna said.

Ashley Conrad attended the prom, too, despite missing her school prom this year.

A talented dancer, Conrad, 18, was diagnosed when she began to experience back pain, and discovered it was cancer.

"This is our moment to finally feel like we belong," she said. " ... You're always feeling sick all the time. It's kind of not-so-great. ...ut in the dress I didn't really feel sick. I felt beautiful and happy. ... I felt normal."

Dr. Farid Boulad, medical director of the Pediatric Day Hospital at Memorial Sloan-Kettering said, "That's the magic -- is that they go from kids who are sick who have sickness and illness and they feel so beautiful."

Lisa Binkley whose 9-year-old son, Aiden, was diagnosed with cancer, told Rodriguez, "(A cancer diagnosis is) the worst thing that you could ever hear, and it's your worst nightmare come true."

But Binkley added the prom helps in the healing process.

Conrad, who was named the prom's queen, said, "People look at children in wheelchairs ... whot don't have hair or that are missing a limb or an eye ... and they look at them differently. But I just I see the smiles, I see how happy they are, regardless of what's going on."