Casey Patton knows a little something about determination.
This Illinois State nursing student has battled a brain tumor for more than five years. Since she was diagnosed at age 16, Casey has been through more than the average college student could ever imagine.
The summer before her junior year of high school, she entered and completed the Chicago Triathlon, an accomplishment that very few can say they even attempted. She was in her prime, feeling great except for some vision problems that had gone undiagnosed for months. The news that would forever change her life arrived the day after she completed one of the most grueling races known to man; she had a malignant brain tumor.
The news was shocking to her and her family. That October, she underwent surgery to remove the tumor. However, the results of the surgery were not what Casey and her family had hoped for. The tumor was inoperable. The day before her 17thbirthday, Casey started chemotherapy. She was scheduled to undergo chemotherapy once a week for 18 months. Fifteen months into the therapy, the grueling pain and fatigue coupled with the unresponsiveness of the tumor to the therapy, made Casey decide to stop the treatments. She was determined to graduate from high school with her friends and head off to college. Casey started at Illinois Wesleyan as a music/theatre major that fall, but experienced survivor’s guilt and her immune system crashed from the chemo. Needing time to assess the future, she dropped out and returned home.
The following fall, Casey realized that she was searching for something more meaningful, and she decided to use her experience as a patient to become a nurse. She then transferred to Illinois State University. Casey was getting her life back on track, a typical happy college student living in an apartment on campus with some girlfriends. She got the devastating news in October of 2010 that she had relapsed. Her doctors advised her to come home immediately to start another round of treatment, but she was determined to finish out the semester. Casey moved out of her apartment over winter break, and went home to Woodridge, Illinois, to explore options for her second round of treatment. Doctors explained to Casey that she was the perfect candidate for proton radiation, which is different than the more traditional photon radiation in that it targets the tumor without damaging anything around it. The problem was that there were only about nine hospitals in the world that performed this new procedure. Casey and her mom moved to Boston in January so she could receive treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital every day for eight weeks.
She will not know the full results of the proton radiation treatment until February of 2012, when doctors reassess the size of the tumor. She says that she will likely have to return to the hospital in Boston once a year for the rest of her life.
Right now, Casey is recuperating at home, but she plans on returning to ISU this fall as a part-time student. Just a few weeks ago, she was accepted into the university’s competitive nursing program.
“I decided that nursing was what I really wanted to do in life because I wish there could have been a nurse or someone there who had gone through what I was dealing with during all my treatments,” Patton said.
When asked what she misses most about being on campus, she replied, “I miss playing club volleyball since I have played all my life, and I miss the girls that I played with. I hope that I am physically healthy enough to play at that level again in the fall.”
Through all of her treatments, Casey somehow found the time and energy to start her own foundation called “Be the Cure”, which raises money for Children’s Memorial Hospital where she received chemo at the beginning of her diagnosis. She says the reason that she wanted to start this foundation is because “everyone is affected by cancer in some way, it seems as though everyone knows someone that has battled cancer at some point.” Be the Cure has donated more than $80,000 since 2007 to children’s cancer research. For more information about Casey’s foundation or to make a donation, please visit www.be-the-cure.com.
The Staff of Her Campus ISU congratulates Casey on all of her hard work and accomplishments with Be the Cure. We thank her for sharing her story.