Published: November 06, 2009 10:03 am      

Family looking for a miracle

Fundraiser set Sunday for family of child with brain cancer

“People have already given so much, I don’t like to ask for more.” But what Danny McKinney would like to ask for is a miracle.

McKinney’s grandson Blake, 11, is in Memphis undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatments for brain cancer at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

Meanwhile, here in McAlester, Krebs, Crowder and the surrounding areas, the community comes together to do what it can to help. Community fundraisers have been organized to help raise money to cover medical bills and travel costs for the McKinney family, while Blake McKinney concentrates on the task at hand — fighting cancer.

The family’s church is among those offering support, both spiritually and financially. On Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., St. Joseph's Catholic Church, located at 290 NW Church Street in Krebs, will host a Sunday breakfast fundraiser.

“I know it sounds wrong, but when you look in those envelopes, you’re looking for a miracle,” Danny McKinney admitted. “You just don’t always get what you want.”

McKinney struggles with mixed emotions when it comes to the financial support various fundraisers bring in. He said the church has offered phenomenal support, and Crowder school, where the McKinney children attend, has gone above and beyond, both financially and emotionally.

“It makes me uncomfortable, people giving their money,” McKinney said. “I’d just as soon they send up their prayers, whether it be for Blake or any other. There’s a lot more woe in the world than just what we’ve got to deal with,” he continued. “God wants His acknowledgment.”

Blake McKinney was diagnosed following a lengthy bout with headaches and vomiting this past summer. After taking him to a string of doctors, his grandmother, Linda McKinney, reached her breaking point.

“He was really sick, nauseous in the mornings, bad headaches, wanting to sleep all the time, and real sensitive to light,” McKinney said. “We’d been to the emergency room a few times, the walk-in clinic, and several doctors.

“Finally, in August, we took him to a gastroenterologist. Linda told him, ‘He’s sick, you’re going to have to find out what’s wrong with him.’”

That doctor ran a CT scan on the boy’s stomach, and found nothing, but on reviewing the chart, realized headaches were a symptom, as well, and ordered a cranial CT scan. That’s when the tumor was discovered.

Surgery followed in early September. Doctors were hopeful they’d gotten everything, and that the tumor was benign.

Neither was the case.

“When you get hit with news like this, you don’t want to hear it,” McKinney said. But now that the diagnosis was definitive, it was time to talk treatment.

Blake was to start treatment approximately 30 days after his surgery. McKinney, who had already called St. Jude’s in Memphis to inquire whether they could take Blake, now had a decision to make. He opted to include Blake in that decision.

“I asked him, ‘Where do you want to go, here or Memphis?’” McKinney recalled. “He said, ‘Where’s Memphis?’ I told him it was in Tennessee. ‘Can I fly?’ I told him, yes, he could fly. ‘I want to go to Tennessee.’”

McKinney had already made up his mind they would take Blake to St. Jude’s. He had friends with a child in a similar situation who’d been to St. Jude’s, so he was familiar with the facility through their experiences.

Blake is there now, with his mother, while his grandparents remain in McAlester working, and going to see him any weekend they can.

“They stay at the Ronald McDonald House, and he goes in for radiation in the afternoon, and he takes his chemo medication every morning,” McKinney explained. “He’s taking it all real good, a lot better than I would have thought. I call most every day.

“I ask him, ‘How you doing, Blake?’ He says, ‘I’m good,’ every time.”

While McKinney is overwhelmed by the local support and encouragement the family has received, he is equally touched by what he’s seen and experienced in Memphis.

“I’ve seen churches from all different denominations give ministries at the Ronald McDonald House,” he said. “They’re all there, trying to help. They have a lot of volunteers there, and they do all sorts of things to try and help these families cope.

“They put on dinners, a movie night, arts and crafts, anything to keep people out of their rooms and mingling with each other,” McKinney explained. He added that most of the radiation treatments or doctors appointments, physical therapy, whatever the treatment, may only take 30 minutes or an hour a day. That leaves a lot more hours in the day to think, worry, fear.

“Those volunteers, they really try to get people to mingle, help each other, go through it together,” he said. “They have several community kitchens, and groups come in and serve meals. One day the Memphis School of Law came up and did a breakfast. They have a playground out there, anything they can do, they do it.”

Blake, who recently celebrated his eleventh birthday while in Memphis, is scheduled to finish treatment on Nov. 24. Meanwhile, the Make a Wish Foundation has contacted Blake, and will likely work with St. Joseph’s to make it a reality in the near future.

“This first fundraiser through the church will go towards helping the family with travel costs and medical expenses,” said Karen Fisher, secretary of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Krebs. “We really want to do all we can to help this family financially.”