At St. Jude, Sully’s family found world-class medical care — and unexpected joy

Madelyne didn’t know why the thought came to her that May night in 2024 — only that it did, clear and urgent:

“I think Sully has a brain tumor.”

Her husband, Mitchell, looked at her, startled. “Why would you say something like that?”

She didn’t have an answer. Only a mother’s intuition.

Sullivan  —  Sully as her parents call her — was their barefoot child. The one who preferred grass to shoes, who chased light across their Alabama farmland with her older sister, Scarlette, and hugged miniature donkeys like they were old friends.

She was 3 years old, with a September birthday just around the corner. She had been vomiting, not constantly, but enough to notice. It was allergy season. Maybe reflux. Maybe nothing. There were trips to the pediatrician.

Then Sully’s eyes began to cross.

At the ER, a CT scan confirmed her parents’ worst fear: a brain tumor. Sully was referred to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® in Memphis, Tennessee.

Later, Sully remarked to her parents that the colorful lights from the ambulance to Memphis reflected in the windows, like stars.

Leave it to Sully, Madelyne thought, to see the beauty, even in hard things.

‘We keep fighting’

Their world shifted.

Sully was diagnosed with ependymoma. She underwent surgery to resect the brain tumor, six weeks of proton radiation and four months of chemotherapy.

For years, Madelyne had run marathons to benefit St. Jude, but now she realized the depth of what these donations provide. 

“We went to orientation, and they handed us this pamphlet and they started telling us all the things St. Jude was going to do for us,” Madelyne said.

They would never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food. 

And they offered something else she never expected: community.

“St. Jude became our home,” Madelyne said. “Someone told me I’d make the best friends of my life here. And I did. We’re all different — backgrounds, beliefs — but we’re united by one thing: We want our kids to be happy.” 

Sully finished treatment in December 2024 and returned home to Alabama. But in early 2025, scans showed the cancer had spread.

The news hit hard. 

They didn’t falter.

“We just said, ‘We keep fighting,’” Madelyne said.

Madelyne and Mitchell appreciate that St. Jude is a research hospital.

“When you’re making decisions about your child’s life, you need data. St. Jude gave us that,” Madelyne said. “It gave me comfort that there were a wealth of experts, including our doctors, who were looking at the case and trying to weigh in on the best options.”

Sully’s second round of treatment included chemotherapy and craniospinal proton radiation.

Sully has handled it with the same resilience she brings to everything. “She’s back to putting on all of her costume jewelry and dress-up clothes and shoes — all the things that make Sully herself,” Madelyne said.

‘They love her’

Madelyne had a meeting for work, so she logged in from her St. Jude apartment, grateful she was able to do her job remotely. If the meeting camera had panned down, her colleagues would have seen Sully on the floor with paper and crayons spread before her. 

“Little do they know,” Madelyne said, “right below me is a little girl who is keeping herself totally occupied as long as she's right by me.”

Sully didn’t need much, just proximity to her mom. 

“I feel like I have to make every day great for her,” Madelyne said. “Even in these moments where we’ve been exhausted and things have been really emotionally taxing, we have this little girl who doesn’t just need — but she deserves — for every moment to be great.”

Madelyne describes her older daughter, Scarlette, as “everybody’s girl. She’s so sweet and personable, and literally she lets everyone love her and she loves them in return.” Then Sully came along and “just decided I was her person,” Madelyne said. Sully is strong-willed, deeply loyal to her mom and not quick to give her heart away. “She is spicy for sure. Some of that maybe is who she innately was, but I think a lot of it is who she's had to be,” Madelyne said. 

So, it comes as a relief that Sully trusts her care team.

When someone asked Sully recently, "What’s your favorite thing about the St. Jude campus?" her answer surprised everyone. She didn’t say the art room or the playground. She said Radiation Oncology was her favorite. The response took Madelyne and Mitchell aback, until they thought about the doctors, nurses and other staff who made the days special for Sully. 

“These are her people,” Madelyne said. “She loves them, and they love her.”

St. Jude has felt like home. 

‘A second chance’

Sully rang the bell at St. Jude to celebrate the end of radiation for her second course of treatment in summer 2025, and the halls filled with cheers and applause. Sully’s extended family had flown into Memphis to be part of a parade to celebrate.

Then Sully was able to go home to Alabama for a time. 

Madelyne was excited to go home, but St. Jude had become their home, too. “We’ve had more joy than I could ever imagine.” 

The family recalls so many moments of unexpected joy. There was joy in the waiting rooms, in the laughter that bubbled up during appointments. Even in Sully’s pride as she showed off the subtle tattoo marks used to place her radiotherapy mask.

“She’s very excited to be the youngest person in the family to ever get a tattoo,” Madelyne said with a laugh.

Scarlette found her own favorite spot on the second floor in the Family Commons, a treatment-free zone for patients and families, where she spent hours sewing and embroidering.

And then there was Christmas. They had transformed their apartment at St. Jude into a wonderland of pink — Sully’s favorite color. 

They met families from across the globe who will be their friends for life.

“When we all come together, we all have the same goal: to help our children,” Madelyne said.

Sully will return to St. Jude soon to continue treatment, as her doctors have always planned to be proactive in determining the best course of treatment for her high-risk tumor. Sully will begin treatment on Loc3CAR, a clinical trial will use her own white blood cells, transformed in the lab to CAR T cells, to target Sully’s tumor. 

Madelyne doesn’t know what the future holds. But she knows what St. Jude continues to give them.

“St. Jude really is a second chance at another day.”