Without You, Tyler Would Be Living a Different Life
Since my first time visiting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, I could tell this was something different. I was only there for a few days but its message and power have followed me since, especially thanks to Tyler.
When I was at St. Jude last year, I got a patient in trouble. Tyler, at the time, was just an 11-year-old having some fun and I may have pushed him to have too much fun that the hotel staff had to reprimand us. I never forgot that night and started following his journey on Facebook.
If you met Tyler today, you'd have no idea the struggle he's been through in his barely over a decade of life and that's all thanks to St. Jude. His mother showed me pictures of a younger Tyler with no hair, no energy, going through the fight of his life and I couldn't believe it was the same energetic kid that I was hanging out with.
His family calls February 2nd "D-Day." That was the day everything in their lives changed and there was no way they could've prepared for it. Tyler went through 2 years and 7 months of over 1000 rounds of chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant, countless blood transfusions, and that's just to name a few of his experiences. On February 2, 2013, Tyler was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. February 2nd also happens to be the anniversary of the day Danny Thomas opened the hospital in 1962. Back at that time, the survival rate for Tyler's cancer was only 4% and now, thanks to St. Jude, the survival rate is at 94% and Tyler is currently cancer-free.
Your donation is raising these survival rates. Your donation is what's going to wipe out the possibility of cancer in children. Your donation is what is going to allow kids like Tyler to live the life they deserve to live.