MESA, Ariz. (Apr. 22, 2026) – Tatumn Carr didn’t have the chance to experience an average childhood. For much of it, she spent countless hours and days at Banner Children’s at Desert Medical Center while she was being treated for bone cancer. Fortunately, young Tatumn eventually finished her treatment, and life started to get brighter.
When she was eight years old, Tatumn decided she wanted to make an impact by helping other patients like her. She and her mother, Charity, in 2016 envisioned what would become “Tatumn’s Treehouse” — a special playroom on the hospital’s fifth floor where pediatric patients could come to experience a sense of normality and forget about stressful necessities like chemotherapy treatment.
Fast forward 10 years, and Tatumn returned to the hospital once again to visit her namesake treehouse on a recent Friday morning. Now a senior in high school, Tatumn incorporated her experience at the hospital and her return visit to the treehouse into her senior project, called the “30 Day Project.” With graduation quickly approaching, Tatumn said she felt it was important to remember her challenging experiences growing up, as they helped to shape the person she is today.
Tatumn walked into the treehouse and looked up and down the room, then glanced toward the room’s main feature — a warm, cozy tree trunk nook with painted branches and leaves that extend onto the walls and ceiling. Smiling with a sense of pride, she sat down inside it again for the first time since it was freshly built a decade ago.
“It was kind of surreal seeing the treehouse again now that I’m about to graduate high school,” Tatumn said. “It’s really fulfilling to see that it’s been put to such good use and that patients are having fun in it every day — if it helps to make someone smile or just forget about treatments for a few minutes, then that makes me happy.”
About Banner Children’s at Desert
Banner Children's at Desert provides pediatric care for children, from newborns to teens. Services include immediate access to Level I trauma services and emergency care, a Level III neonatal intensive care unit, general pediatrics, surgical and rehabilitation services, hematology/oncology, urology, gastroenterology, neurology and outpatient services. For more information, visit bannerhealth.com/bannerchildrensatdesert.
For further information contact us at: [email protected]
