Digby's Relay for Life

“I remember it was at a family gathering that it all started. I threw something into a pond and then I cried out in pain. But the cry said more than ‘I hurt myself.’ My parents scooped me up and rushed me to the hospital. “They kept me there overnight and then we went back to the hospital over and over again. I think I drove the nurses crazy. I don’t remember being scared, but looking back I know my family was. “I’m not sure I really understood what was going on, but there was chemo and there was radiation. “I remember when I had radiation, someone made a stiff mesh mask for my face, it held my head in place. It had to be bolted down to a table so I wouldn’t move. “My brother wrote a story about that time in our family’s life. I didn’t read it until years later, when I was in college. But in the story he talks about going to the hospital with my mom and hearing a kid screaming in pain. Then he realized the kid was me. “I remember big chunks of my hair started to fall out. My parents had me sleeping in a crib in their room, and I remember the looks on their faces when they saw the chunks of hair in my crib. “But there were good things during that time. One thing that really made a difference was a strong faith and strong church family. They got presents together. They gave me a fishing pole and every time I went for treatment I got to fish out a present. “And I had a stuffed dog. I took him everywhere. I still have him. He’s very worn, but it seems right to keep him. “I remember one of the nurses, her name was Ruth, she was small. I remember her getting up on the bed with me trying to console me. “Eventually, I went to the hospital less often. And then there was just an annual checkup.”

When Jason had leukemia, one in seven kids survived. Today the 5-year survival rate for children with acute lymphocytic leukemia is greater than 80%. Jason McCutcheon, now an assistant pastor at the Wesleyan Church, will be the honorary chair of Digby’s 2009 Relay for Life. He will tell his story at the annual survivors banquet. He will also join other local cancer survivors in the victory lap: together they will walk around the track at Digby Elementary School to mark the beginning of the annual event.

The funds raised by the Digby Relay for Life help fund cancer research, as the battle against the disease rages on.