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Remarks by Penny Juros before the National Leukemia Society Leadership Conference, November 12, 2004, Mile High Stadium, Denver, Colorado

Good Evening. My name is Penny Juros and it is an honor and pleasure to be with you tonight. I was asked to share with you my personal experience with cancer and how it has affected my life. I have been given the bittersweet unfortunate honor of not only being the mother of a two time
leukemia survivor plus emergency brain surgery survivor but also the widow of a brain cancer victim. It is appropriate to me that I speak to you tonight from Invesco Field. There have been many thrilling athletic victories at Mile High Stadium, where the Broncos came from behind to win, when everything seemed lost. Tonight, my son Chad and I are going to tell you about a more amazing victory, when the odds against winning were absolutely slim. You may think you have seen magic performed on this field before. However, I am going to tell you about magic that goes beyond a game, what I call life-changing and life-saving magic. My family has experienced this type of magic and I know yours can too.

My new normal started on my birthday, October 21, 1991. Until that date I had led a charmed beautiful life. I married my high school sweetheart and supported us while I put my husband through dental school. In 1986 our daughter, Faith, was born. She is now 18. In 1988, our son, Chad was born. He is now 16, however, getting to this milestone wasn't easy and didn't come without its many sleepless nights, lots of pain, fear, hope and magic. At the age of three Chad was diagnosed with leukemia. The doctors from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia told us how lucky we were. If we had to pick a cancer we picked the one with a high rate of survival and one with a cure. On December 1, 1995, exactly one year to the date off of treatment Chad relapsed. Immediately our life changed once again only this time we were so much smarter, more educated and knew we were in a lot of trouble. We learned so quickly that ignorance is truly bliss. The more we knew the more we had to fear. Chad, who was now age seven, asked the doctors at Children's Hospital "am I going to die?" and his doctor replied "Chad, you have a better chance of dying then living, you went from an 80% chance of survival to under 5%." Instantly life was no longer black and white, it wasn't clear, it wasn't easily defined.

Immediately Chad reacted to the chemotherapy treatment. He had numerous cardiac arrests,
comas, breathing machines, feeding tubes, morphine pumps, liver damage, sepsis, kidney failure, had to learn to walk and talk again due to the devastating effects of the chemo and last rites were administered twice. I raised Faith by beeper because cell phones weren't popular yet, it became my lifeline to her. I attempted to sleep in a chair next to Chad's bed as my way of escaping because my nightmares became better than my reality. During this time Faith, who was only nine years old, would call me at the hospital and inform me that her Dad was acting weird, he was sitting in the dark giggling and no one was in the room with him. He was watching the fuzz on TV and saying it was his favorite show. He was taking two hour showers, had frozen shoulder and carpal tunnel. All attributed this to post traumatic stress syndrome or being a dentist and/or local tennis champion. Through this ordeal I would go home to Faith on Tuesday evenings and Don would travel to the hospital to spend time with Chad. Don wanted to teach something to Chad that they could share and participate in together. Since he couldn't teach him tennis, as he did Faith, or take him golfing or coach him on a little league team he decided to teach Chad magic as a way of diverting Chad from his horror. After 17 months of Chad's horror not only did he survive, he thrived. In March 1997, seventeen months after the relapse Chad and I finally came home. Once again we felt so blessed that we were living as a family of four again. It was then that Chad started receiving brain radiation prophalatically. In January 1998 finally Chad finished his cancer treatment. During this year Don was become weaker. And then on October 21, 1998, seven years to the day of Chad's original diagnosis and now my 41st birthday Don collapsed in my arms. That night my husband was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme IV, primary malignant brain cancer. There is no hope, there is no cure. Once again my family's life came crumbling down. I felt like I was pushed from a plane without a parachute. I felt like I was plummeting through the air at record speeds and no matter how much I attempted to pull on that parachute cord it wouldn't open, there was nothing to cushion my blow, I knew I was about to hit the ground with a huge splat. And so started our battle of attempting to now save Don's life. We felt if they fixed Chad, they'll fix Dad. The doctors advised me to sell Don's dental practice quickly and attempt to make memories with the children. I drove Don to NYU and flew him to Duke each week for brain cancer treatments. Our goal was to stall his death until they hopefully would discover that magic bullet. On October 21, 1999, one year to the day of Don's diagnosis I awoke to Don experiencing 11 grand mal seizures and cardiac arrest. Instantly he became a three month old trapped in a 41 year old body. He followed us with his eyes and drooled. Thankfully Don went into a coma and a few weeks later died in my arms as I was telling him a joke. This brings me tremendous peace and pleasure. What better way to die but in the arms of the woman you've loved since you were 15 years old. I promised I'd keep him laughing to the end and I did. From that moment on Faith, Chad and I decided to devote our lives to making choices that Don would be proud of and to finding the magic in our lives. I threw myself into Chad's magic business as a way of dealing with my loss.

It was then that the Magical Chadakazam was discovered by Richard Petty of the NASCAR world and hired Chad to perform at his camp for children with life threatening diseases. Chad was spreading his magic touch and inspirational story across the country. Faith, Chad and I were finally healing, finally moving on, life was so good for the first time in 10 years when on January 5, 2003 Chad came to my bedroom at 2 a.m., and said "Mom, something's wrong, I can't close my eyes". Again I fastened my seatbelt ready for whatever journey I was about to embark for the fourth time. I rushed Chad into emergency at Children's Hospital for the umpteenth time only to be told that Chad had a pediatric cavernoma hemagoma and a venus angioma. That meant that Chad was bleeding from the brain as a result of the seven years of chemotherapy and radiation. His brain had a blood vessel that became weak and started to bleed. The bleed was touching a vein. The neurosurgeon at Children's Hospital told me to prepare for the worse which included being paralyzed, having a stroke or having such severe weakness that he'll never perform his magic again. Chad looked the neurosurgeon in the eye and in the sweetest softest voice said "Please don't take the magic away from me. Its my reason for living, its my father's dying wish for me".

Once again I had to pull myself together and find the strength for not only my children, my immediate and extended family, my friends but also myself. As in the past I decided to focus on the facts, what we knew we could hopefully fix and not dwell on the "what ifs". Since Chad's original diagnosis I taught my children they cannot live in a "what if" world. We wait till it happens and deal with what is in our power to control. While everyone finds what they need to survive through their ordeal my drug of choice became magic. I learned through the fortune of meeting parents, survivors, sufferers, and so many people who have been affected by this horrible ordeal that all seem to have something magical in their life. Chad underwent emergency brain surgery and awoke from surgery seven hours later thankfully and magically deficit free. It was on that day that the famous magicians of the Las Vegas strip heard of Chad's ordeal and love of magic and invited Chad to perform at a casino with them. It was also then that CureSearch, The National Childhood Cancer Foundation, heard of Chad's magical journey and invited him to perform on Capital Hill. There our first lady Mrs. Bush addressed a hearing to promote childhood cancer awareness explaining how Chad is living proof that experimental protocols do work. And it was there that Mrs. Bush invited Chad to appear at the White House for the Easter Egg Roll. Once again our family needed to refocus and heal. I searched for ways to make the magic in all our lives become a reality. For my daughter it was tennis. For me it was writing and attempting to be both the mother and father to my children, focusing on the making their father's dying wishes come true. And for Chad, his whole world focused around magic, that next gig, that next trick, that next illusion. I've learned through my tears and pain that life is just an illusion and we are all part of the trick. The abracadabra in my life became focusing on making my children's dreams come true. My children and I are survivors. We fought our personal war and struggle. It didn't come without its casualties and fatalities but we also have our heroes. And so, with the hugest pride and pleasure it is my incredible honor and thrill to introduce to you my inspiration, my hope, my joy, my hero and one of the magics in my life, my son, The Magical Chadakazam.