Gold Angel Brad
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Brad was a normal 5th grader. Then, in April 2014, his parents received the worst news they would ever want to hear: their son had a brain tumor.
They went to John Hopkins Children's Hospital and four days later, Brad underwent a 15-hour surgery. According to his mother, it was the longest day of their life. The tumor was cancer - Medulloblastoma. Brad lost his ability to walk and talk after surgery. He endured 31 days of radiation to his brain and spine, followed with nine cycles of chemo. During this process, Brad was going through physical therapy to learn to walk and talk again at Kennedy Krieger. Brad was in the hospital for three months and someone always stayed with him, since he couldn’t talk, couldn’t push the nurse button, and couldn’t yell for help because he had no voice. In September 2015, doctors found a spot on his spine: the cancer was back. His doctors tried to remove it, but surgery was too risky. They decided to do 10 days of radiation and a stem cell replacement, which eliminated the cancer. In September 2016, Brad received another MRI, and two new spots were found. His doctors offered clinical trial medicines. “It’s so hard watching your child go through so much pain and suffering and there isn’t anything you can do to make it better," Brad's mother said. "When we go to clinic all the time, it’s hard to believe there are so, so many kids with cancer, it’s pretty sad! You see what these kids go through, how strong they are, how hard they fight. The sad thing is they miss out on a lot of things that are taken for granted like going to school and being with their friends; instead they are in the hospital or spending hours and hours at appointments.” Unfortunately, Brad has passed. |