These days even the most seemingly normal moments, like afternoons spent in the backyard or hours watching 10-year-old Levi shuffle through his impressive card collection, are reminders for the Murphy family that every day is a gift.
“When you hear your child has cancer, they found a tumor in his brain, your mind automatically spirals. You don't know what to do. You don't know what comes next,” said Lauren Murphy.
Last April, Levi was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a common type of brain cancer in children.
He was immediately admitted to Children’s Health where he underwent two six-hour brain surgeries in both his brain and spine.
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
Today, a string of courage beads serve as a reminder of all that ensued over the next 12 months, including radiation, chemotherapy and a lot of pricks and pokes, before Levi rang the bell cancer-free earlier this year.
"It's a community that I never wanted to be a part of, but it's a community I’m very proud to be a part of now,” said Murphy.
According to the American Cancer Society, nearly 10,000 kids will be diagnosed with cancer this year. More than 1,000 under the age of 15 will die.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Last year, Christine Martin's 12-year-old daughter Izzy lost her battle to bone cancer.
“Izzy was a force. She was a force in this world. She was a fast-paced demanding child all her life. And when cancer came, it didn’t slow her down,” said Christine Martin.
Continuing her daughter's mission, Martin is spearheading an effort to get North Texas to "go gold" as September kicks off Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Starting Friday, the Team Izzy Foundation is partnering with dozens of schools across Dallas ISD and a handful in other parts of the metroplex to go gold in the classroom and on the football field throughout the month of September.
They’re also selling t-shirts to raise money for 10 area organizations that support children with cancer, shining a light on the fact that only 4% of the federal dollars spent on cancer research fund pediatric studies.
“Izzy’s favorite line is, 'We're not just cute bald kids.' She's like, 'We're more than that and we need more.' And I think it was about looking beyond the kid and seeing, this is what's really happening. And we need to do something more and stand up and shout about it so that the priority has shifted so that we get more funds and more dedicated funding for cancer research,” said Martin.
Friday night, that message was amplified in a big way as the Dallas skyline lit up gold, a tribute to kids like Levi and Izzy and all of those still in the fight, watching from their rooms at Children's Health.
“It’s such a huge, visual way for our city and our community to say we stand with you,” she said. "I've thought about the kids and the parents because I remember sitting there and I remember staring out the window at just whatever I needed to do. So to see that skyline and say, that's for us. That means so much."
