My Nephew Dan’s story
It was Thanksgiving Weekend in 2009, and Dan (14 years old at the time) came home from school for the holiday weekend with a request from the school nurse, “Mom, look at this lump on my neck”... I saw a LARGE lymph node sticking out of his neck, it was impressive and scary. We saw the pediatrician and blood work was drawn and advice was given that it was likely mono and he should get some rest. But the blood work was negative and really, there were no other symptoms. While the doctor monitored Dan’s condition, it wasn’t until the week before Christmas that Dan started to have difficulty breathing and we realized something was really wrong. What we had missed over the previous few weeks was that all of the lymph nodes in Dan’s neck had started to swell. We were sent to the emergency room at Princeton Hospital to meet a physician from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and within a short time we had the news.
That was December 19, 2009 and, for five months Dan was in the care of the amazing cancer fighting team at CHOP. Within 3 days they had identified the type of Lymphoma he had (Large B cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma) and had a plan to beat it. They were confident and sure they knew what to do, so our job was to trust them. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a long journey, but because of the enormous amount of cancer research that has been done, they had his protocol literally down to a science and the cancer was beaten. Today Dan is a happy healthy young adult thanks to the research and treatment protocols developed for lymphoma and leukemia.
My Way of Helping
Eight years ago after my nephew was diagnosed with Large B cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, I raised money by shaving my hair at Farrell’s St Patty’s day party to help support the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). After raising over $3,000 for CHOP hospital I am now looking to raise $5,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society that actually helps fund the research that saved Dan. I will be training for the next 4 months to bike from our CS New York office to our Raleigh office. I will be joined by 52 other CS colleagues in this 4 day endeavor. Please help me in my quest to get to Raleigh - no amount is to small!
