In 1992, I began helping my husband with his annual "radiothon" for kids with cancer. Even after years of reading up on environmental issues, I was shocked to learn how huge a role toxic exposures play in the incidence of pediatric cancer. Collectively, fewer than 10 percent of all malignancies are thought to involve inherited mutations. Today, most scientists believe that environmental factors cause or contribute to the remaining 80 or 90 percent of childhood cancers.

For more than five years, my husband and I discussed the different ways in which we could help these kids. Then one morning, when I was pregnant with Wyatt, my husband had the brilliant idea that, over time, evolved into the Imus Ranch.

The Imus Ranch began as the ultimate leap of faith. With the generous support of people all over the country, we built the 4,000-acre ranch in Ribera, New Mexico, about an hour's drive from Santa Fe. By 1998, children suffering from cancer and various life-threatening blood disorders, such as sickle-cell anemia, and children who have lost a brother or sister to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) were traveling from all over to experience life on our authentic 1880s-style working cattle ranch.

From the beginning, we wanted the Imus Ranch to be different from any place these kids had ever known. My husband and I had noticed that, all too often, kids with cancer get treated differently from other kids. Everyone in their lives — their parents, teachers, doctors and even their peers — coddles them, sometimes with good reason.

At the ranch, we took the opposite tack: Instead of placing limitations on these kids, we put them to work. Through a demanding program that promotes perseverance, discipline and a strong work ethic, these kids get their sense of purpose back. They regain their self-esteem, dignity and confidence. They discover that they can do anything any other kid can do, sometimes more. In pushing them to work hard and treating them not as china dolls but as regular kids, we remind them that they're defined by more than their disease.

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