Infant Burkitts Lymphoma Survivor

Hi,

My name is Taylor Batson. In Oct. 1992, I was diagnosed with Burkitts Lymphoma at the young age of one and half years old. Oddly, after a large bout with strep throat.  My family flew me to St. Louis Children’s Hospital for diagnosis and treatment. That act alone saved my life. My cancer caused my parents to loose our family health insurance. My mom was able to speak with Hillary Clinton as to the problems surrounding cancer patients and their families. This world was new to both our family. The staff at the hospital were awesome they became our second family. There were a couple of us with Burkitts. The diagnosis caused the staff to advise us of the grave situation at hand and that they were never sure if this was going to be manageable or not. At one point they asked my parents to consider making funeral arrangements in case. The treatment was as painful as the disease and we all suffered as a result. In Feb. 1993 I went ended treatment and we waited. The cancer was so aggressive it might return. Leukemia was also in the background waiting to rear its’ ugly head, as it does with other cancers. We waited. After five years in remission I was considered cancer free. Getting health insurance on me was not going to happen at that time. It was just a nightmare for my parents to grasp. But I am a healthy athletic 21 year old male. To this day, I have only video and pictures as I do not remember any of it. My mom has stories. Wonderful ones.  Ones that are just short of tiny miracles adding up to this big one = my life. St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University-an incredible teaching hospital are the ones who kept tweaking the treatment no matter the cost have my full gratitude and admiration. But the most praise goes to my parents who also had four other children to have to raise while going thru this together. So we are all cancer survivors as no one goes thru this alone. It takes a village.

taylor burkitts

Taylor’s News Paper article from when he was just 2 years old

 

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