Seated on the back porch of her home in North Fayette, Kristen Casasanta, 19, looks at photos from her family's recent free trip to the Bahamas.

The four-day cruise was a gift from the Kids Wish Network, an organization that grants the wishes of children and young adults with life-threatening illnesses.

"We needed a vacation," Ms. Casasanta said. "We needed to get away for a little bit as a family."

On Sept. 23, 2007, Ms. Casasanta had just begun her freshman year at California University of Pennsylvania. She went to the emergency room with severely swollen lymph nodes in her neck, and doctors performed a biopsy. The verdict: rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare type of cancer that usually affects children. Only 350 cases of rhabdomyosarcoma are reported each year in the United States.

Ms. Casasanta's initial worries were that she would lose her hair and have to drop out of college.

"I didn't ask too many questions," she said. "The doctor just said, 'we're going to beat this thing, so don't worry.' "

Patty Casasanta, Kristen's mother, said the prognosis was not good initially for her daughter, whose cancer was classified as Stage III. She turned to her husband, a registered nurse, for information about the cancer.

"I just sort of relied on his information, because you hate to go out there and Google things and then hear the worst of it," she said. "It sort of crushes your hope."

But Ms. Casasanta responded well to treatment. She dropped out of school, underwent five weeks of radiation and nine months of chemotherapy. She lost her hair and at times, she said, she was so weak that she could barely hold a pen to write her name.

Then June 26, 2008, came along; a date firmly imprinted in the Casasanta family's memory. It was the day Ms. Casasanta had her last chemo treatment. She is now in remission.

Ms. Casasanta returns to the hospital every three months for scans, but so far, she is clear. The only visible mark from the cancer is a slight scar on the right side of her neck, where the biopsy was performed.

On May 21, Ms. Casasanta, along with her mother, her father, Bill, and her brother, Dominic, 13, flew to Miami to begin the Kids Wish Network trip. The following morning, they boarded a Carnival cruise ship.

"Every family is affected [by cancer], so just for us to come together and get away from life, it was nice," Ms. Casasanta said.

Last August, she returned to college as a freshman again, and she just completed her first year. This summer, Ms. Casasanta is hoping to volunteer at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, where she received her treatment.