Client: Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Source: Northwest Herald
Following a pediatric cancer diagnosis, 11-month old McKai Malooley’s community has rallied around him in hopes to bring miracles to the boy and his family. Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago is striving to completely cure McKai and help him live a cancer-free life.
“When Nick and Laura Malooley learned that the mass in their son McKai’s leg was cancer, the news was devastating.
“It was heartbreaking,” Nick said. “It was a long drive home.”
After receiving the diagnosis, the family waited three weeks for test results to indicate the stage of their now-11-month-old son’s rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer of the body’s muscle and soft tissue. While the stage 3, category 3 results took time to process, the Malooleys wasted no time procuring a treatment plan at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
While chemotherapy has eliminated the need for amputation by shrinking the tumor to a small enough size that it can be removed surgically, the drug McKai is being administered, cyclophosphamide, is known to cause infertility in the male reproductive system. To preserve his ability to have children, McKai has undergone an experimental procedure that removed testicular tissue containing stem cells with the hope that in the future, the cells can be stimulated to grant McKai the ability to become a father.
McKai is currently the youngest patient in the experimental study. Because he and the other patients still are in their youth, they have yet to have their own children.”
Northwest Herald, “Cary community supports infant pediatric cancer patient,” July 8, 2016