[i][b]Kicking the butt of cancer
Brendan Whieldon took his cue from Terry Fox and didn’t give up when doctors told his mom he would die[/b]
Damian Inwood
The Province
September 18, 2005
CHILLIWACK – Brendan Whieldon has decided to battle his incurable cancer by becoming a courageous karate kid.
The seven-year-old believes that every time he throws a punch or a kick, he’s ridding his body of the deadly disease.
“I do karate to get the cancer out of my bones,” says the Langley boy, diagnosed three years ago with neuroblastoma while in kindergarten.
Today, his fellow students at Valley Shidokan Karate in Chilliwack will take part in the Terry Fox Run to help find a cure for cancer.
Brendan had an inoperable tumour that started on his adrenal gland, wrapped around his heart and liver and quickly moved into his bone marrow.
His mom, Shannon Whieldon, says doctors told her son he had a five-per-cent chance of survival.
“I told him, ‘That means out of 100 children, five will live, so whenever we tell people you have cancer, everyone will be crying,’” says Whieldon, a maternity nurse at Langley Memorial Hospital. “I asked him, ‘What are we going to tell them?’ and he said, ‘We’re going to beat this!’”
Brendan had 45 radiation treatments and has undergone chemotherapy every three weeks for three years. Two years ago, doctors told Whieldon to take him home to die.
“They said there was nothing left for them to do,” she says. “I asked Brendan how he thought he could beat the cancer and he said, ‘If I could learn karate’” – an idea he got from watching the kids’ TV show Power Rangers in the hospital.
“I said, ‘OK, if that’s what you need, I’ll do it,’” says Whieldon, who takes karate lessons with her son. “It seems to be working.”
The pair were referred to Don Sharp, a fifth-dan karate master at Valley Shidokan.
Sharp says that on his first day, Brendan was so weak he had to be carried in by his mother.
“She walked in with him in her arms and sat down on a chair and said, ‘OK, teach him karate.’” Sharp got Brendan to warm up on the mat and had him do some slow jogging.
“He went from not being able to walk in the door and by the end of the class he was a sweaty, regular kid, moving around, excited and impassioned by what he had learned,” says Sharp. “And he walked out with his mom. It kind of inspired both of us.”
Brendan started off with private lessons and Sharp came up with some mental games for him.
“But it was him that came up with the idea that every time he was throwing a punch, he was shaking out the cancer from him,” says Sharp.
Brendan takes four hours of training a week and has gone from a quiet, shy boy to an enthusiastic, energetic student who shouts Japanese words while he performs routines.
Shannon says she would even bring him to class after undergoing 10 hours of chemotherapy.
“All the drugs were in his body and he did a one-hour, physical workout and I think it pumped the drugs really deep into his bone marrow,” she says.
In June, Brendan went off intravenous chemotherapy and on to a pill version. “All the doctors said the pills wouldn’t work,” says Shannon. “But in combination with the karate, he’s got stronger and stronger all summer.”
Last year, Brendan had to be pushed in a wheelchair by fellow students in the Terry Fox Run at Alex Hope Elementary in Langley.
Friday, Brendan ran two laps, or about 1,500 metres, by himself in the school run.
“He was very excited,” says his proud mother. “He said, ‘I’m going to make it. Terry Fox made it.’”
dinwood@png.canwest.com[/i]
Picture and original article at
http://www.canada.com/vancouver/globaltv/story.html?id=90d73475-8715-4c89-b934-0b012a8ed06f
Whoa…!