Shay Stump

This September, I’m joining the nationwide movement to honor Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. I’m doing this for my son, Kai, and all of the other children and families who are dealing with a childhood cancer diagnosis. Please join me in donating so we can find cures for these amazing kids, so they can grow up and live their best lives!!

Can I count on your donation to help me reach my goal?

In March of this year, my family’s lives changed forever. Our 9 year old son, Kai, was diagnosed with nephroblastoma, more commonly known as Wilm’s Tumor. To say our lives have been upended would be an understatement. Although it has been an absolute whirlwind since his diagnosis, there has been one constant since we arrived in Memphis on April 14, and that has been St. Jude.

Kai was accepted into a clinical trial for proton radiation therapy with a goal to, in part, effect the change of the current standard of care from photon to proton radiation therapy. And because St. Jude freely shares their research with other organizations, ALL kids will have access to this type of therapy that has dramatically less potential for long-term side effects. This is the type of work that St. Jude researchers and doctors are doing - working to improve the outcomes for children, with better quality of lives and longer life potential. When St. Jude opened in 1962, childhood cancer was largely considered incurable. Since then, St. Jude has helped push the overall survival rate from 20% to more than 80%, and they won't stop until no child dies from cancer.

Although no parent wants to hear their child has cancer, being a patient and family at St. Jude makes that diagnosis so much easier to navigate and has been a blessing beyond all others. They truly do all the things they profess to do – no parent ever receives a bill for medical fees, travel, housing, or food while their child is a patient here. They believe a parent’s only focus should be their child’s health. If that’s not enough (which is simply amazing!), they also do everything possible to care for all of our needs – patient, siblings, and parents. I could go on and on as the list is long and we are grateful every single day to be here. So I hope that if you are able to make a donation to a cause this year, you will choose this one so that more children and families can have access to the wonderful organization of researchers, doctors, nurses, and staff that makes St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Thank you for supporting me and the lifesaving work happening at St. Jude today.  

Let’s cure childhood cancer. Together.