Luke Garrett Sutherland-Hamilton, 6 years old, was diagnosed on October 9, 2018, with a brain tumor. It was removed the next day and found to be Metastatic Medulloblastoma, a rare form of pediatric cancer. Luke was signed up for a St. Jude’s Trial as quickly as possible while healing from his surgery and waiting to begin treatment. He was to have 30 proton radiation treatments and then another 7 cycles of chemotherapy. Luke’s doctors felt like he had a better than fifty percent chance of survival. He celebrated his 7th birthday in the hospital. A little over three weeks after being admitted into Cooks Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, Luke was allowed to go home, although suffering from left sided deficits as a side effect from his surgery. A few days after being discharged from the hospital, Luke began having terrible pain in his neck. The pain turned out to be the regrowth of the tumor that was originally removed from his brain. It caused swelling in his brain in two areas. Luke’s doctors couldn’t believe the rate of growth of the tumor and believed he likely had a gene that hasn’t been discovered yet. After heroic attempts to save his life using proton radiation, Luke succumbed to his illness within two days of being readmitted, on November 9th.
