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Finding Cures. Saving Children.
Patient of the Month - October 2006
Cross Kubik
2 years old
Diagnosis:
Cross was discovered to have neuroblastoma in August 2005. Neuroblastoma is the most common tumor in infants younger than 1 year of age and a common solid tumor of childhood.
Cross' Story:
When Cross, a normally happy baby, became increasingly irritable and easily fatigued, his parents, Ashley and Brian, worried. When he stopped eating and complained of stomach pains, they took immediate action—but a diagnosis for Cross would be frustratingly slow in coming. Three weeks of extensive testing by local physicians yielded no answers, yet Ashley knew that something was seriously wrong with her child.
“I knew, and you can never ever tell a mom or a parent that they don’t know,” said Ashley.
Cross’ condition continued to worsen. He stopped eating, experienced excruciating stomach pains and ran dangerously high fevers. Desperate for answers, Ashley and Brian insisted on more tests.
That’s when the pediatrician decided to conduct a CAT scan of Cross’ distended belly.
Ashley described the awful moment when all her worst fears were confirmed. “I looked up and saw the looks on their faces and I immediately looked at Brian and said, ‘Something is really, really wrong.’” Cross had a tumor called neuroblastoma. The pediatrician told the family to take Cross to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital immediately.
At St. Jude:
After driving through the night, Ashley and Brian saw the red lights of St. Jude from the highway and felt their hearts would break. “To this day it was absolutely the scariest and worst day of my life,” said Ashley. Even so, a St. Jude nurse offered the family its first flicker of hope when she told them frankly “I know you don’t want to be here, but you are in the best place in the world for your baby.”
Cross was the first child to receive an experimental drug for neuroblastoma called ZD-1839 on the neuroblastoma protocol 2005, which shrank his tumor 50 percent. In addition, this brave child endured radiation treatment, chemotherapy, surgery and a stem cell transplant. Now cancer free, Cross is on a maintenance therapy protocol to hopefully prevent the cancer from ever coming back.
“He loves to visit his doctors and nurses and looks forward to going every day,” Ashley said. “It’s his life, and it’s all he knows.”
Last update: October 2006
