Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 178

(5/6) “My biggest challenge? Two words for you: third...

(5/6) “My biggest challenge? Two words for you: third grade. It’s kind of like second grade but harder. I was a very special student in second grade because I had a brain tumor. A very rare one, actually. I was the only one in the world with this type of brain tumor. Everyone who knew me was shocked! Their heads blew up! I’ve been through a lot of things this past year. But I can tell you, if youget brain cancer, try not to worry! It will be very hard and you will get lots of fevers but you have to be brave. You have to be brave like me because I’m very brave about this thing. And if you don’t know how to be brave, I can teach you. I know the surgery seems scary, but I have four words for you: you’ll be on anesthetics. When you wake up, your head will be wrapped like a mummy and your mom will take a picture and show you. When it’s time to get shots, do a countdown from thirty and tell yourself: ‘Calm down, calm down, calm down.’ Then whenever you’re ready, tell the nurse to go. And if you need more time, ask for more time!”

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We are currently holding a fundraiser to help study and cure rare cancers like Gabe’s. Almost 1000 people have donated so far. I hope that over the course of the series, more people will consider donating. Rare and specialized cancers like Gabe’s require innovation. And there are numerous instances of dedicated researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center making life-saving breakthroughs with small amounts of money. We can make a difference: http://bit.ly/1TpFcdy

(4/6) “After the surgery, we thought it was over. We...

(4/6) “After the surgery, we thought it was over. We think it’s done. Gabriel is getting better and it’s like nothing happened. His teachers can’t believe it! We’re even planning on going to the beach. But the doctors tell us that they can’t identify the tumor. The surgery was in July. August passes. September passes. Now that the tumor was gone, we were anxious to start treating the cancer, but nobody knows where to start. Every hospital is saying something different. Then finally two hospitals gave the same opinion: Descmoplastic Small Round Blue Cell Tumor. Nobody had ever seen this tumor in the brain before. They told me not to read about it. They told me that every case was different and not to read about it. When you read about it, it’s very bad. Oh my God. This cancer always comes back. And when it comes back, it’s worse. ‘Less than three years,’ it says. Oh my God. What did I do? What did I expose him to? What did I feed him? The chemo is so painful for him. My family tried to talk me out of it. They told me that I’m killing my son with my own hands. But what can I do? There’s nothing I can do. I want to give blood. I want to give bone marrow. But all I can do is watch. It’s the worst show you can imagine, but you have to watch. You’re forced to watch.”

(3/6) “The doctors gave us peace of mind. They seemed so...

(3/6) “The doctors gave us peace of mind. They seemed so sure of their profession. They were using all these medical terms and speaking to each other so calmly. They spoke about the tumor like it was a simple puzzle. We tried to explain the surgery to Gabe as if it was a cartoon. He loved cartoons. We told him that there was a black hole that was sucking all the good energy out of his brain. We told him that he was going to be cut a little bit, but we did not tell him how much. I told him that he may have difficulty speaking when he wakes up, but don’t worry, because we’re going to write to Mommy on a notepad. But I’m thinking inside that I’m never going to hear my son speak again. During the surgery, my husband and I just walked around aimlessly for hours and cried. Finally they called and told us they were finished. We went in to see Gabe and he’s speaking words. He’s speaking regular words. My husband is so excited that he’s taking a video. But I’m looking at Gabe and he’s in a fetal position on the table. And I remember thinking that the way he was lying there, he looked like he did when he was born. It was just a bigger version of baby Gabriel. He had been such a healthy, beautiful baby boy. And here he is again. And he’s not well.”

(2/6) “I didn’t tell my husband right away. I just told him to...

(2/6) “I didn’t tell my husband right away. I just told him to come meet me at the park, and that’s where I told him. The whole time Gabe was playing nearby. My husband took it very hard. He started crying. He had a panic attack. Our lives had not been easy. It was very difficult for us in Albania. My husband grew up without a father. We decided to come to America alone as teenagers. Neither of us spoke any English. We had no family here. It was very lonely. We came from nothing. We worked very hard and we went to school at night and we taught ourselves English. My husband got a job as a steam worker and I got a job in marketing. We bought a beautiful, sunny one-bedroom apartment. We had recently paid off the mortgage. We could even afford to send Gabe to private school. It felt like we were evolving. We felt like we had finally made it past the hard times. Then the rug was pulled out from under us and everything crumbled. And I didn’t know what to pick up first. Do I comfort my son, who’s about to go through the worst journey of his life? Or my husband? Or myself?”

(1/6) “Gabe was a perfectly healthy boy. He’d reached...

(1/6) “Gabe was a perfectly healthy boy. He’d reached all his milestones as a child. He talked early. He walked early. He never got sick except for colds. He did baseball and swimming and kickboxing. Then two years ago he began to have a ‘pins and needles’ feeling in his mouth. Then it grew numb and he had trouble talking. One day the teacher had him read out loud in class and he drooled all over the paper. So I raised a flag with the pediatrician. He thought it was just an allergy, but sent us to a neurologist just in case. The neurologist thought it was just a ‘tick’ and part of a growing phase. But he did an MRI just in case. When the results came in, he asked Gabe to wait outside the room. That’s when I became scared out of my mind. It was the worst possible news. The doctor said it was a tumor the size of a big olive. In the brain.”

“All doctors have those patients who sit on our shoulder....

“All doctors have those patients who sit on our shoulder. Their image is always with you. One kid will pop into your head every time you hit a wall– when you encounter a disease that is so unrelenting that you’ve exhausted all therapies and you’re still not even close. One memory will keep you going. It’s a different kid for every doctor. It’s hard to know why they stick with us. I remember one patient that had red hair just like my son. And I remember one five-year-old girl who made me laugh, because when I asked her how she was doing, she told me: ‘I don’t know. You’re the doctor.’ And then there was the boy early in my career who was born without an immune system. He’d already lost two older siblings to the same disease. He lived the first two years of his life in an isolation room with no windows, and his entire exposure to the world was through a black-and-white TV. We gave him a bone marrow transplant, and suddenly his immune system came online. And we took him for a walk in the garden. This boy who had spent his entire life in a windowless room. And a sparrow landed on a bush, and he pointed at it, and said: ‘Bird.’ That moment will always be with me.”

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting stories...

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting stories gathered from the Pediatrics Department of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Obviously these are not going to be easy stories to read. These are war stories. The treatment of cancer can be nearly as violent as the condition itself, and even the doctors will frame their efforts in terms of warfare. But the fight against pediatric cancer is uniquely tragic because the battlefield is the body of a child. So these are definitely war stories. But as with every war, there are heroes. You’ll meet the amazing doctors, nurses, and researchers who have committed their lives to this fight. You’ll meet the moms and dads who refuse to crumble while living out their greatest fear. And most importantly, you’ll meet the reason that everyone is fighting, and the greatest warriors of all—the kids. So yes, these are war stories. But this is also the story of humanity’s bold response to the greatest injustice of nature. And as we learn these stories, we’ll be raising money to play our own small part in the war.

A quick update on the funds we raised last December to help...

A quick update on the funds we raised last December to help the Syrian refugee families coming to America. With the help of The Compassion Collective, each family has been contacted through their resettlement agencies and have worked out an individualized plan to receive their share of the funds. We wanted to be sure that the money was given in a way that would not negate other benefits and assistance. Some families elected to receive the money right away, others in installments, and some asked that the money be held for future needs. Thanks so much to The Compassion Collective for doing all the organizational work on this—especially Liz Book who really spearheaded the effort.

If you haven’t heard of The Compassion Collective, it’s a group of super-talented authors such as Glennon Melton, Cheryl Strayed, Brene Brown, and Liz Gilbert. It was extremely generous of them to lend their organizational abilities to our fundraiser. Late last year, they also raised $1,000,000 in donations to support refugees, and they are gearing up for another campaign this Mother’s Day. If you are a fan of their literary work, I encourage you to follow along and help them in their charitable endeavors as well.

“I started failing all my classes when I was twenty, dropped...

“I started failing all my classes when I was twenty, dropped out of college, hitchhiked around a little bit, and ended up at a Buddhist monastery for six years. My relationship with my teacher was very worshipful at first. He taught me so much: how to meditate, how to wok, how to teach. He seemed to know everything. And he seemed to know more about me than I knew myself. So I completely depended upon him. Then he had a sex scandal. And when that happened, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t lean on him anymore. So I moved to the city and got my bachelor’s degree at City College. I’m glad for my time at the monastery. I’m a better person because of it, and it taught me discipline. But I don’t think I’ll ever be idolizing anyone again.”

“From the moment he could speak, he could...

“From the moment he could speak, he could discuss.”