Fund Childhood Cancer Research in Honor of Rally Kid Matthew

Fund Childhood Cancer Research in Honor of Rally Kid Matthew

Matthew’s Cancer Journey

Matthew Hart is just 11 years old but is in his 10th year fighting a high grade brainstem glioma, an aggressive brain cancer with less than a six-month life expectancy. His cancer is so rare that his doctors know of no other families with the same diagnosis. After spending an entire year and a half in hospice, Matthew became the first cancer child in Georgia’s history to graduate from hospice. After a near death biopsy, and 31 radiation treatments, in 2015 Matthew began a cutting edge, oral chemo that they hoped might buy him two years, and to everyone’s great surprise it’s brought him so many more years. However, Matthew’s cancer is so aggressive and in such a tight and vital part of the brain that he needs continuous treatment to keep it from overtaking him, which includes taking chemo twice daily for the past eight years.

“These difficulties are small in comparison to the joy we experience in our lives,” said Dawn Hart, Mathew’s mother. “We have so much to be thankful for. Matthew is silly and sweet and loves any way that he can be independent! Our hope is that Matthew’s story will stir in others, a call to action. Local families, especially those many years into their journey, would be so blessed by being remembered.”