TORRINGTON, Conn. (AP) - St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has always been a part of Becky Hayes’ life – before she even realized.
Hayes recalled how the hospital helped save her life during Sunday’s 41st annual Tim Driscoll St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Telethon at Torrington High School.
Hayes was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma – a rare form of liver cancer – as a 15-month-old at UConn Medical Center in December of 1981. No child had ever survived that type of cancer, she said.
That’s when Hayes was introduced to St. Jude, a Memphis, Tenn.-based children’s hospital that conducts research on all forms of pediatric cancer and then freely provides their findings with hospitals around the nation and world.
“The doctors gave me six months to live but they communicated with the doctors at St. Jude’s, and they had an experimental protocol they were trying out on me,” Hayes said. “It worked, so I was the first child to have survived that type of cancer.”
As Hayes fought through her bout with cancer as a child growing up in Winsted, her parents met Tim Driscoll, a Torrington man who founded the annual telethon in honor of St. Jude hospital in 1979 and helped Hayes’ parents pay for her medical bills.
When Hayes was discharged from pediatric oncology as an 18-year-old, her doctors told her that her medical records had been shared by St. Jude hospital all over the world, including at a doctors’ convention in Sweden, to provide hope for other children who dealt with hepatoblastoma.
“They told me, ‘your protocol is saving children now’, so that was cool,” Hayes said, noting how she attended the telethon yearly as a child with her parents.
Hayes, now a 40-year-old resident of East Granby and mother of three children, was back at Torrington High School on Sunday, helping emcee the 13-hour telethon from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.
“It’s really awesome to know that when I used to come when I was really small, I was sick,” Hayes said. “Those first few years I would come and hang onto my mom. Tim would play the piano and he was amazing. He would have me come up and sit on the piano bench with him.”
Driscoll died in 2015 but the telethon continues to go strong, evidenced by all the families from Litchfield County who showed up to the telethon throughout the day.
Kristin Raymond, Driscoll’s daughter, served as a main emcee in the auditorium where 25 children’s groups from around the area performed dances and sang songs.
“Since the hospital is in Memphis, I think it’s easy to say that it doesn’t touch us with it being really far away,” Raymond said, “but we started with my dad 41 years ago bringing the message close to home that they do help us here, too. It’s humbling and overwhelming.”
Marc Belanger, of Thomaston, donated a $500 pledge to the telethon as a way to follow in the footsteps of his father, Jerry Belanger.
Belanger’s daughter, Brianna, danced on stage with Thomaston Center School.
“He was a big donor himself, he made pledges all the time and had a real soft spot for children,” Belanger said of his father. “Every year he donated countless dollars, he was that type of person. It was in memory of my dad.”
As of 7:45 p.m. Sunday, the telethon had raised $55,971.
“I just have so much pride for the people of Torrington and Litchfield County,” Raymond said. “It’s overwhelming the amount of support we get.”
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