CHAD JUROS

By Rory Johnston--Magic Magazine, August 2006
“Reprinted by permission of MAGIC Magazine, Las Vegas, Nevada, www.magicmagazine.com.”

We call what we do “magic.”  We will often use phrases such as, “If that was your card, it would be a miracle.”  Some of us even try to take our performance to the next level, adding story to our routines in an effort to make them meaningful or even inspirational.  But what if this art form allowed an experience of real magic?  What if it created an authentic miracle?  What if the story went well beyond the ordinary world of illusion and became deeply meaningful and truly inspiring?  I am proud and honored to present to you…

Chad Juros. 

Chad Juros has had some remarkable experiences.  This eighteen year-old young man is an official magician for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Philadelphia Eagles Fly organization.  He was personally asked by Richard Petty to perform at his Victory Junction Camp for critically ill children, and after recently receiving a standing ovation at Paul Newman’s Hole In The Wall Camp has already been booked back next year.  He was invited by Laura Bush to perform at the White House, the youngest magician ever to do so.  He played the role of a young David Copperfield in a Japanese television show.  He created the Spread the Magic Foundation, a charity organization. He has been taught by such luminaries as Johnny Thompson, Eugene Burger, Jeff McBride, Mac King, Max Maven and more.  He received scholarships to Tannen’s Magic Camp, Sorcerers Safari, and the SAM scholarship for college.  Just last month he appeared on National Television when Criss Angel dedicated an entire episode of MindFreak to him, culminating with the young performer opening at the Monte Carlo Casino and Resort in Las Vegas for Lance Burton.

And yet, I cannot imagine a single person reading this who would want to change places with Chad.

This story is about more than a love of magic; it is about magic as a lifeline.

At age three, Chad was diagnosed with leukemia.  Luckily, that type of cancer had a high rate of survival.  Chad went into treatment and the nightmare lightened.  After three years, Chad’s treatment ended and things looked good.  But exactly one year later, a few weeks before Christmas, he relapsed. 

“I remember going in for a regularly scheduled check-up, then going to the children’s play room while my parents spoke to the doctor.  My dad came in, tears running down his face, and whispered, ‘The cancer came back.’ He hugged me so hard I thought he would squeeze the cancer right out.”

Chad, now age seven, looked up at the doctor and asked, “Am I going to die?”  The doctor knelt down beside the wide-eyed boy, placed a hand gently on his shoulder, and said softly, “Chad, you have a better chance of dying then living.  You went from an 80% chance of survival to under 5%.”   His parents, Penny and Don, could only hold hands, trying not to shatter each other’s bones in the crushing grips.

Chad needed a bone marrow transplant, but to the family’s dismay none of them were a compatible match.  No other donors could be located.  The doctors explained that Chad’s best chance was an experimental protocol, but it had only been used on four other people before and all had relapsed or died.  Still, there wasn’t any other choice.  At Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Chad was hooked up to a bizarre collection of machines like some sort of science-fiction experiment: feeding tubes, morphine pumps, breathing inducers,  heart monitors, and more.  He took 23 pills a day, was visited by the blood sucking, needle-wielding vampires nightly.  He reacted harshly to the severe chemotherapy treatments, suffering liver damage, sepsis,  and kidney failure.  His mouth sores became so intense that he couldn’t even open his mouth, so he received nourishment from tubes in his stomach.  He slipped into comas on a number of occasions, and went into cardiac arrest twice and was pronounced dead. 

One can well imagine the horrific life this was for a little boy: a 17-month trial of torture.  Chad’s parents, of course, were desperate to do anything to make this ordeal easier for both their children.  An avid tennis player, Don spent as much time on the court as possible with Chad’s sister, Faith.  That was obviously impossible with Chad, so he turned to his other hobby: magic.  Sitting at Chad’s bedside, he pulled a coin from the boy’s ear.  Rewarded with a smile, he took out a set of cups and balls and performed them on the bedspread.  Chad was delighted with the magic and for the first time in years pain faded into the background.  As the hospital stay stretched on and on, emphasis shifted from simple performance to lessons in sleight-of-hand.  Chad had both a keen interest in learning and all the time in the world to practice.  Magic became his obsession, every waking hour.

While his mother stayed in Philadelphia with Chad, his father stayed at home in New Jersey with Faith, but on Tuesdays the parents changed places so each could spend a little time with their other child. Chad began to see the third day of the week as the best because that was when his father came and shared the magic.  Don brought video tapes, introducing his son to new tricks, then Chad would practice all week, performing them for critique the following Tuesday.  “Magic was everything to me, it got me through the treatments.  It helped me focus on something else than being sick and suffering.  It became my entire world, my savior, my life line.”

“Even when Chad slipped into a coma,” his mother explained, “we played the video tapes; not knowing if he could hear them, but figuring it couldn’t hurt.”

Faith, only two years older than her brother, was also deeply affected by the circumstances, spending most of her time sleeping at friend’s houses.  When she was at home, however, she noticed her dad acting a bit strangely.  She called her mother at the hospital.  “Mom, Dad is sitting in the dark, giggling.  Yesterday he was watching the white noise on the television and said it was his favorite show.” 

After 17 months Chad finally went home.   To do so, he had to endure painful and frustrating physical therapy to learn to walk and talk again.  He carried his feeding equipment and fluid tubes in a backpack.  He had no hair.  He continued to receive debilitating brain radiation as a preventative measure against relapse. He was forced to repeat the first grade.  In spite of all this, he continued to practice magic and started performing shows for local birthday parties and charity functions.  He discovered that the one time he could completely forget about his affliction was when standing before a smiling audience, entertaining them, lifting their spirits and relieving them of their cares for the moment.  After a show, he and his dad would often go outside and set off model rockets.  Watching them shoot high into the atmosphere was almost symbolic of the freedom and joy Chad was feeling — life finally taking off in the right direction, the sky’s the limit.

One afternoon, exactly seven years to the day of his original diagnosis, Chad was performing a birthday magic show for his mother in the living room, when his dad stood up and turned on the television in the middle of the show.  “I was shocked,” Chad said, shaking his head, slowly. This was the capper on a number of things that had been off-kilter ever since Faith had reported her father’s strange behavior months earlier.  Don had been known to take two-hour showers, shave only the right side of his face, and wander lost in their own neighborhood.  He had Carpel Tunnel, but that had been blamed on his work as a dentist.  He had a frozen shoulder, but that was attributed to his intense tennis game.  Interrupting his son’s magic show was so out of character, however, that Chad knew something was terribly amiss.  His suspicions were proven frighteningly true when his father collapsed.  Penny rushed her husband to the hospital where doctors tried to tell them that the weakness and erratic behavior was a result of post-traumatic stress syndrome from his son’s illness.  She wouldn’t accept that and insisted they do an MRI, scanning the brain.  They had not even completed the drive home before her cell phone rang and the doctors asked them to return immediately to the hospital.  Don had malignant brain cancer.

Once again the family’s life came crumbling down.  Chad described it as being pushed from a plane without a parachute, plummeting through the air at record speeds, desperately yanking at an unyielding ripcord, waiting to hit the ground with a huge splat. The mantra in the Juros household became, “They fixed Chad, they can fix dad.”

Not so.  The magic failed.  Like a trick gone horribly wrong,  Don experienced grand mal seizures and a cardiac arrest, becoming a three year-old trapped in a 41 year-old body.  Suddenly, in a warped reversal of twisted fate, Chad found himself sitting on the side of his father’s hospital bed showing him magic tricks, trying to teach a few, simple moves.  Once again the young magician dealt with his pain through magic. 

“My dad’s dying wish was,  ‘Keep spreading the magic.’  In that moment I decided to devote my life to making choices he would be proud of and to fully developing the magic, in all forms, in my life.”  At his father’s funeral, Chad placed two symbols in the coffin — a magic wand and a model rocket. 

Chad threw himself into the magic business.   His entire life became focused on the next show, the next trick, the next illusion.  Before long his schedule was packed with shows, including numerous charity events.  His inspirational story began to spread.  One cold, dreary day at a NASCAR race he was near the pit performing a card trick when one of the pit crew noticed.  “Do that again!” the man called.  Chad did.  The crewman called his friends over and soon a crowd formed.  When Richard Petty saw the gathering he came over to see what the fuss was all about.  After watching Chad’s magic he made a proposal.  “I throwing a fundraiser to build a camp for kids with life threatening diseases.  Would you be interested in performing at it?”  Chad smiled.  “Well, as a matter of fact, I have a story of my own…”  It wasn’t long before a handshake deal had been made between the racing superstar and the rising magician. 

The family was healing.  Life was looking a bit like a model rocket.  Then in the middle of a cold winter night, Chad stumbled into his mother’s bedroom with a headache that felt like his head was in a Crusher.  “Mom, something’s wrong,” he gasped.  “I can’t close my eyes.” 

“There’s good news and bad news,” said the doctor.  “The good news is, it isn’t cancer.  The bad news…”

Chad was bleeding in his brain.  Seven years of chemotherapy and radiation had weakened a blood vessel.  Immediate life-saving surgery was essential.  The doctors told Chad to prepare for the worst: being paralyzed, having a stroke, or being so weak that he would never perform magic again. The fifteen year-old remained silent while the neurosurgeon finished marking his head in preparation for surgery, then turned to the man with tears in his eyes and pleaded, “Please don’t take the magic away from me.  It’s my reason for living.  It’s my father’s dying wish for me.”  Chad then pulled himself together, gathered his props, and presented a magic show for the other patients at the hospital.  Knowing full well that this might be his last performance ever, he once again focused on bringing others pleasure to chase away the cold fear that gripped him to the depths of his soul. 

When Chad awoke from the surgery, the first thing he did was reach for a deck of cards on the bedside table.  The doctor walked in just in time to see Chad do a perfect card fan.  Breaking into a wide grin, the surgeon proclaimed, “He’s just fine.”

Almost immediately the telephone began to ring and e-mails started pouring in.  A buddy of Chad’s,  juggler Mike Rossman, had contacted a number of famous magicians with his friend’s story.  Lance Burton, Mac King, Jeff McBride, Penn & Teller, Kevin James, and others all contacted the patient to see how his recovery was going.  A local newspaper ran a story about the young magician and somehow a copy made its way to Atlantic City where Johnny Thompson was performing.  Reading the story, Johnny was moved to visit Chad at home, teaching the young man his egg bag routine.  “He actually gave me an original  Malini egg!” Chad said, excitedly.  “He was a great teacher and we became good friends.”  Johnny stayed in touch with the family, visiting a number of times, but then left the area to work on a television special for a new performer named Criss Angel. 

CureSearch, the National Childhood Cancer Foundation, heard about the magic of “Chadakazam” as he was known and invited him to Capitol Hill where first lady Laura Bush was addressing a hearing to promote childhood cancer awareness.  She used Chad’s magical journey as an example of successful experimental protocols.  Afterward, she took him aside and said, “I hear you’re available to do the Easter Egg Roll on the White House grounds.”  He answered, “I’m free for anything you want me to do!”

Remembering his father’s dying wish, Chad formed the Spread the Magic Foundation, a nonprofit corporation that performs magic for pediatric cancer patients.  He has teamed up with HBO (and the media class at his high school) to produce a DVD of simple magic tricks to be distributed to children’s hospitals, camps, hospices, and foundations.  Chad and his magic friends also perform at these venues and produce magic shows to raise money for charitable organizations.  “The idea is that through magic we can bring some joy and laughter into these people’s lives.  The organization is new but we have big plans, including sponsoring pediatric cancer patient’s attendance at magic camps.”

Chad’s performance schedule is impressive, with over almost three-dozen shows already on the calendar this summer, squeezed between several weeks at a number of different magic camps.  He entertains at birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, school assemblies, corporate functions, and numerous charity events.

Not long ago Chad received a surprising telephone call.  The producers of Criss Angel’s MindFreak had heard about Chad from Johnny Thompson and were inspired by the story.  “Come to New York, we’ll do a shoot… and we have a few surprises.”  Chad was absolutely thrilled to travel to Times Square where he was introduced to Criss’s family.  While there, Criss surprised Chad by announcing that they were going to make a dream of his come true by flying him to Las Vegas to do a spot at the Lance Burton Theater.  Chad was stunned, thrilled, and more than a bit nervous. 

Chad, who had been studying under the tutorship of his good friend and mentor Joe Holiday, arrived in Vegas and was now taken under the wings of Dexter, Banachek, and Luke Germay.  The three seasoned performers worked with the young man on his presentation and showmanship.  They even provided a beautiful Vegas showgirl as an assistant.  After a day of rehearsal on the Aladdin stage, Chad was once again stunned to be told he would not only be able to do his act on the Monte Carlo stage, but would be doing it in front of a sold-out house as an opener for Lance.  “I had assumed he would be working some afternoon to an empty auditorium.  This was something else altogether!  I was very nervous!”

There was no reason to be.  With apparent confidence the young performer took the stage and presented a three and a half minute act featuring silk productions, a Flip stick, a Snowstorm in China, and a cage appearance. The act earned him a standing ovation.

“It was unbelievable.  A dream come true.  I was on cloud nine!  It was the thrill of a lifetime!”

A very intense, difficult lifetime.  For now, Chad is in remission.  Remission doesn’t mean cured, but he considers himself lucky; his recovery is considered astounding, amazing, and miraculous. He is leading a life of dreams come true.  He attributes this to his guardian angel, his father, whom he believes is watching over him, spreading a protective blanket of strength, love and, of course, magic.