John Strange

We have been supporting this event for many years now never knowing that one day we would become a St Jude family. Our son Michael was diagnosed with a very rare form of pituitary tumor in Dec 2020. St Jude originally declined his case because they didn't have experience treating that specific tumor. He had an unsuccessful surgery in Memphis in Jan 2021. Local doctors treated his tumor with a long shot medication to see if they could shrink it. In June, he experienced a major seizure and had to be airlifted to Brimingham from Starkville. Seizure risk was never mentioned so we went looking for a second opinion. We found a doctor in NYC that had extensive experience and performed another more successful surgery in August. His surgeon was unable to remove the last 20% of the tumor due to its location and proximity to critical structures like the optic nerve, cranial nerves and internal carotid artery. During recovery, he also suffered an unusual case of bacterial meningitis. It was determined that proton therapy was the best course of treatment to address the remaining tumor. His radiation oncologist in NYC consulted with his counterpart at St Jude and they took his case. He was treated in the fall of 2022 with six weeks of proton radiation. Ever since, the remaining tumor has remained stable and continued to slow function as expected. Michael is now doing great and finishing his final year at MS State majoring in Agricultural Business.

We will be forever grateful for the treatment we received at St Jude. They have one of the few proton therapy centers in the US. Fundraising is what makes this possible as well as the new expansion which will be able to treat even more children into the future.

Let’s cure childhood cancer. Together.