CREVE COEUR, Mo. – One cancer patient refuses to be defined by her disease. She is using her love of Legos to spread joy to other people who may have health-related issues.

“My daughter didn’t give me fair warning. It was rainy season. So, we started building Legos,” Jen Seitz said.

Seitz, who has gained the moniker “Lego Girl,” spends hours upon hours putting sets together, ranging from cars and buildings to spaceships.

She started building after a March visit to her daughter in Florida.

“I was like, ‘These are really neat,’ and so I started sending some sets back to myself here,” Seitz said.

Seitz has come to love Legos, especially as a distraction. Since last November, she has been dealing with serious health issues, starting with seizures and then intestinal cancer.

“It was March of this year that we discovered the tumors in my abdomen, and I’ve been going through treatment with that,” she said.

Over that time, Seitz said she’s built more than a thousand “friendship flowers” out of Legos. In giving them to fellow patients at the hospital, her own spirits are lifted.

“I’m finding so much joy doing Legos and keeping my mind busy,” Seitz said. “Why wouldn’t I help impact other people and give them some brightness and color and hope?”

She says she wants Friendship Flowers in every home.

“It’s a little, tiny set of brightness and color and happiness and joy,” she said.

Lego has even hired Seitz to build display sets like the ones you may see in your favorite Lego stores.

“So, you’re going to pay me to do what I’m already sitting on the sofa doing? Kind of sounds like a pretty good gig,” she said.