ABOUT BRODY:  Brody Hurt is almost 8 years old and has lived in Severy his whole life.  He is the son of Shawn and Carey Miller Hurt and has a 10 year old sister, Kylie.  His grandparents are Don and Juanita Miller of Grenola and Jerry and Judy Hurt of Sedan (formerly of Severy).  Great grandparents are Helen Copeland of Howard, Dewayne Triboulet of Longton and Mary Burt of Fall River.

On September 14, 2007, a month short of his 7th birthday, Brody was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, a cancer of the sympathetic nervous system.  This diagnosis came after several months of intermittent, severe leg pain and numerous tests.  Brody underwent surgery to remove the original tumor from his right adrenal gland on September 15th in Wichita but the cancer had already spread to his bone marrow and numerous other boney areas in his body.  Brody's parents did much research and decided to have him treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City where they have a whole team of medical staff, including 4 doctors, who treat only neuroblastoma.  They have done years of research on neuroblastoma and have a treatment called 3F8 which is an antibody treatment to teach the body to destroy the neuroblastoma on its own.  They also have a neuroblastoma vaccine coming out during the summer of 2008. Dr. David Rosen, pediatric oncologist, in Wichita works with the Sloan doctors so that some treatment can be done in Kansas.

Since September, Brody and his family have spent most of their time in NYC, where they stay at the Ronald McDonald House.  Brody has undergone 8 rounds of chemotherapy, 2 rounds of 3F8 antibody, 27 rounds of radiation to his legs, pelvis, abdomen, liver and orbit bone, a second surgery to remove approximately 30 lymph nodes from his abdomen, and stem cell collection.  As of July 3, 2008 Brody's neuroblastoma had started to grow again and he started a hard, high dose chemo on July 7th, stem cell rescue on July 14th and will have radiation to his skull starting on July 15th.

Brody is all boy.  He loves fishing, hunting, farming and ranching activities and baseball. He collects webkinz and likes video games.  Brody is a courageous young boy who has a long road of recovery and treatments ahead of him.

ABOUT THE CANCER:  Neuroblastoma is a form of cancer that occurs in infants and young children.  This is a relatively rare form of cancer that affects the sympathetic nervous system – a nerve network that carries messages from the brain throughout the body.  Each year about 600 children in the United States will develop neuroblastoma.  Generally developing in young children, it accounts for half of all malignancies in infants.  These solid tumors, which take the form of a lump or mass, commonly begin in one of the adrenal glands, though they can also develop in nerve tissues in the neck, chest, abdomen or pelvis. The adrenal glands, located above the kidneys, are specialized glands that release hormones which maintain blood pressure and respond to stress.