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‘Everything will work out for the best in the end'
Ceremony celebrates brave battles fought by children
Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo by GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Childhood cancer survivor Brandon Johnson of Prince Frederick poses next to the white Hyundai Santa Fe bearing the handprints of childhood cancer patients. The handprints were placed at a recent ceremony at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, D.C.
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Just as he was finishing high school and making plans for his life, Brandon Johnson of Prince Frederick learned that he faced a battle for that life against cancer in the form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Recently, Johnson, now 19 and in remission, shared his inspiring story of courage and determination with other childhood cancer victims at the annual Hyundai Hope on Wheels event on July 15 at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, D.C.
As part of the Hyundai Hope on Wheels program, Lombardi received a generous donation from Hyundai America. Hyundai representatives from the Washington area presented a $40,000 check to Lombardi Director Louis Weiner and Chief of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Dr. Aziza T. Shad. The funds will be used for the childhood cancer survivorship program run by Shad.
Following the ceremony, at a reception at Lombardi for child cancer victims and their parents, Johnson said, "Without this money, we wouldn't have hope for an end to cancer."
He knows all about fighting cancer and the hope of putting an end to the dreaded disease.
"It was the first time I had ever spent a night in the hospital," he recalls. "Then my hair fell out and [later] classes of medical students kept coming in to ask me questions since I was the oldest person in the unit."
Johnson said that support from his family made the fight against cancer bearable for him. "The day to day courage to keep fighting was easy to find because all my family was very helpful and supportive. They would always come to visit and ask if there was anything I needed or wanted to make my stays better."
He has been in remission since late January and once again is contemplating his future.
"Right now I am getting ready to go back to school in the fall," he said. "I haven't picked a major yet but I was thinking about something in medicine since that is the only thing I've done since I got out of high school."
Johnson said the determination to keep fighting is necessary when battling cancer.
"My advice for others fighting cancer would be just take it one day at a time; you'll have your good days and your bad days but everything will work out for the best in the end."
"Here at Lombardi we strive to ensure every person is recognized as an individual and that their treatment is tailored to who they are and what they need," Shad said in a release from Lombardi. "Gifts like we have received today make this customized care possible."
Following remarks from both Weiner and Shad, 14-year-old Ryan Tomoff was introduced as a 2009 Hyundai Youth Ambassador.
Tomoff was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at the age of 1, and has been treated at Lombardi for the past 13 years.
Tomoff joined Johnson and other childhood cancer patients in a unique handprint ceremony, where each child dipped his or her hands in finger paint and made handprints on a white Hyundai Santa Fe.
According to Georgetown's release, Hyundai and its dealers have donated more than $12.4 million since 1998 to fund life-saving childhood cancer research. In 1998, New England-area Hyundai dealers began raising funds to support the Jimmy Fund at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Since then the program has grown to fund hospitals and research institutions nationwide and is supported by all of Hyundai's nearly 800 dealers.
According to the release, the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of Georgetown University Medical Center and Georgetown University Hospital, is one of only 41 comprehensive cancer centers in the nation, as designated by the National Cancer Institute, and the only one in the Washington, DC, area.
