Name: Kenny
Diagnosis: Neuroblastoma
Home state: Tennessee
"I thought they had made a terrible mistake," Kenny's mother said. "You don't ever fathom the idea that you are going to outlive your children."
But that is exactly what went through her mind as doctors told her that her 3-year-old son Kenny had neuroblastoma, a common solid tumor of childhood that can arise anywhere along the sympathetic nervous system which runs from the base of the neck to the tailbone.
The tumor was pressing on Kenny's spine, causing him to have less strength than your typical 3-year-old. The news was hard to take, but what came next was harder. The tumor was in stage four, the worst stage, and it had spread to Kenny's bone marrow. "It had 'fingers,'" Mom said, "that reached out and grabbed everything like a vine."
The doctor sent Kenny to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, where research has helped push the cure rate for neuroblastoma from 10 percent in 1962 to 59 percent today. Kenny's mom didn't know what the future would hold save for one thing -- her son's treatment would be quite expensive. Happily, she was wrong.
"I was in disbelief," she said, when she found out that her family would incur no costs from treatment at St. Jude. "They said we would never receive a bill from St. Jude. I had to ask them to explain that." ALSAC, the hospital's fund-raising arm, covers all costs not covered by insurance for medical treatment rendered at St. Jude. Families without insurance are never asked to pay.
At St. Jude, six months of chemotherapy shrank the tumor to the point doctors were comfortable removing it in a 12-hour operation. But while that rid Kenny of the visible tumor, the fight to eliminate the cancer from his bone marrow was now taking shape. Kenny endured additional chemotherapy treatments, a bone marrow transplant and radiation treatments, which have given him a fighting chance at beating the deadly disease.
Today, Kenny is able to walk more and he continues to develop his fine motor skills. Some of his favorite activities are riding the merry-go-round at the local mall and playing with his toy cars. Kenny told his mom that when he grows up, he wants to be a fireman.
