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Cindy Crawford highlights childhood cancer event (with photo gallery)

Shawn Doherty  —  7/06/2008 7:21 pm

Supermodel Cindy Crawford and nearly 1,000 other people who have watched children in their families struggle with cancers at American Family Children's Hospital gathered Saturday at Monona Terrace for a reunion. 

"Sharing is what gives us all strength," Crawford told the crowd at the event, called Kids With Courage, before heading off to pose for pictures with excited children and their equally star-struck parents.

Cancer strikes one out of every 300 children in the United States. The overall cure rate has jumped from 20 percent in the '70s, when Crawford's young brother died of leukemia, to more than 80 percent today.

"We've made tremendous progress," reports Dr. Paul Sondel, head of the pediatric oncology program at American Family Children's Hospital, formerly called UW Children's Hospital.

Yet some children still do not survive, and this year for the first time, their families were invited to the reunion of survivors as well. "Kids who died also showed tremendous strength and courage," said Andrea Urbon, a social worker who has worked in the program for 30 years.

A sister of one of those young patients gave one of the opening speeches. "It's a little tough," admitted Lindsay Secard of Madison. Her big brother Brent, who always helped her with homework, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma when he was 13 and she was 10, and was buried four years later with a bunch of golf balls because he loved the sport. "I think of him every day," Secard said. Partly as a result of his death, Secard, now 23, is a nurse at Meriter.

Sharon Lundgren of Milton also gave a speech in which she remembered not just her son, Matt, who was 16 when he died of leukemia 10 years ago, but other young people they came to know during his illness.  There was Sweet Ruthie, whose mom made her a cap with yarn braids to cover her bald head. There was a little Vietnamese boy whose mother's delicious meals left the hospital halls fragrant. And there was a toddler named Joshua who loved to dance to Matt's guitar, jamming in the hospital room.

While there were plenty of tears at the reunion, there were also lots of laughs and fun. Event organizers had organized games and activities for children so that their parents could attend lectures on topics ranging from insurance woes to ways for survivors to avoid the side effects of their invasive treatments. 

Dora Crookshanks, 3, was dancing in the aisles in angel wings, one of only four people in the world with a rare form of liver cancer, according to her mother.  

That spirit prevailed, even for the 20 families whose children were not present. "Our hearts are broken, but not our spirits," said Tom Lundgren.

Several cancer survivors spoke of their ambitions for the future. Jon Gabrielson, 18, is a survivor of leukemia. Just last spring, he ran for mayor of Appleton and garnered more than 500 votes.  And UW-Madison junior Peter Greenwood has not let a prosthetic limb, the result of his battle with osteogenic sarcoma, prevent him from learning how to kayak in whitewater.  In the words of a song he wrote and played for the reunion about the fight against cancer, "All we can do is keep going strong."

Shawn Doherty  —  7/06/2008 7:21 pm