Andrew Stephens, a childhood cancer survivor and a senior at Middletown High School, was honored during the Youth Appreciation Dinner at Middletown Elks Lodge on May 4.
The dinner was hosted in observance of Elks National Youth Week between May 1 and 7.
About 30 students in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) and their families were also in attendance.
Middletown Elks Lodge Exalted Ruler Scott Hamel remarked at the dinner: “Youth are the future of our country. It is great to see all the great students, JROTC students, and parents who support them.”
Hamel told The Epoch Times that youth is the nation’s greatest resource and will assume the responsibility to advance society in the future.
Stephens, who was named the student of the month at the dinner, fought a rare muscle cancer twice and will graduate from Middletown High School in June.
He was diagnosed with stage four alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma at 11, and his doctor said he only had three months to live.
“I didn’t know how to react,” he said. “I was scared and had almost a blank.”
He stayed in the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Westchester for weeks at a time for treatments with his mother, Elizabeth Deaver, by his side.
“I went in a fight mode, and all I could think about was, ‘What I can do to save my child?’” Deaver said.
The hospital visits opened the eyes of Stephens and his mother to various kinds of child cancers; sometimes, they witnessed children die.
“Everybody used to bring in all these gifts for us, but you would see so many kids with nothing,” Deaver said. “So, we started doing toy drives to make sure all the kids had toys.”
Their efforts soon expanded to gift card drives, care package donations, and working with foundations to raise money for related causes.
Meanwhile, Stephens learned to let go of fear and make the most out of every day.
In early 2017, he went into temporary recovery but soon had a relapse, after which he mustered the courage to participate in a trial study with experimental treatments.
He soon found out that many treatments he went through were designed for adults; he also learned that only 4 percent of National Cancer Institute funding went to pediatric cancers.
So he began an effort to spread awareness about childhood cancer and the importance of funding in this area, including working with the Middletown School District to observe Childhood Cancer Awareness Month on campuses.
School board President Rose Tobiassen was a big supporter of the effort, Stephens said.
“Cancer is a bad thing. But for me, what it did is that it has changed me mentally. It has taught me that there is more to life than what I had been living, ” he said.
At the Middletown District, teachers and administrators have supported Stephens in many ways since his cancer diagnosis, including encouraging him to apply for college, he said.
“I didn’t want to go to college, but there were teachers that knew that I was capable and pushed me to think about it,” he said. “I said maybe I should give it a chance.”
He will attend Orange County Community College in the fall and plans to have a career in computer science.
Deaver said the cancer is under control now but could return at any time.
“That’s why we live day by day but at the same time look forward to the future,” Deaver said. “And that’s why we keep doing for others because we know what it is like to be there.”
