CLIFTON PARK - Next month's Catiebug race will mark the 10th anniversary of the fund raising foot race created by the officers of the Catie Hoch Foundation. The race will be held Sept. 27 on the Clifton Common.
This year, however, will mark the end of the organization's sponsorship of the race established in memory of Catie Hoch, the 8-year-old Clifton Park girl who died of a pediatric cancer in 2000. Ending the foundation's connection with the race is an action that foundation director Gina Peca finds bittersweet.
Hoch was the young Clifton Park girl who received regular phone calls from Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling during her illness. Rowling would call from her home in Scotland and read the latest chapters of her books to her. Catie Hoch would have graduated high school in June.
The foundation is ending all its active fund raising efforts including the Catiebug due to a serious illness to Peca's husband Larry Hoch. Hoch was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor in January and was told the cancer had moved to his spine.
|
|
"Because I live in the cancer world when we first got the news I knew it wasn't the worst one (cancer) and I knew it wasn't the most benign either," Peca said.
Since the diagnosis the couple has moved quickly and taken very aggressive action to remove the cancer from Hoch's body. He has had two spinal taps and biopsies, spinal surgery, radiation treatments, chemotherapy, and a stem cell transplant.
As the two sat in the airy family room of their Country Knolls home last week they discussed how quickly their lives had changed in seven months.
"I turned 50 this year," Hoch said, "and as a New Year's resolution I promised Gina I'd get a checkup. I had a nagging pain in my back and neck for a while, and my hearing wasn't quite right. I figured I'd do a 50 year checkup and get set for the next 50."
Hoch has been athletic all his life.
He had been running five to six miles a day until the back pain and had taken to seeing a chiropractor before going to see his general practitioner. As part of the checkup his doctor recommended an MRI. Hoch agreed and had it done in mid-January.
Within days he received a call from his doctor and was told of the brain tumor and how it had spread to his spine. The doctor said he thought it was cancerous and recommended a spinal tap be done.
"When you get news like that you are scared immediately," Peca said. "You want to move fast. You don't want to waste a day."
When a first spinal tap was found inconclusive Peca reached out to doctors at Sloane- Kettering Memorial Cancer Center in New York City who had treated her daughter 10 years earlier. The couple was told to come to the hospital for a second spinal tap.
A double laminectomy and a biopsy were performed on Hoch in February on the Friday before the Super Bowl. The results confirmed the original diagnosis. He was told he had pineablastoma, a rare form of pediatric cancer. It is considered rare in children and extremely rare in adults.
He was also told the brain tumor was inoperable due to its location and was offered managed care. The couple would not hear of it. They wanted aggressive action as soon as possible.
"It's like Little League," Hoch said. "When you've got two strikes you're not going to take a third one. If you go down, you're going down swinging."
As part of their preparation for the second biopsy the couple had given Catie's physician, Dr. Kim Kramer, permission to receive part of the material taken from Hoch. Kramer knew of a doctor at the Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester who was working in the field of pediatric cancers. She recommended Hoch and Peca speak with him.
"We wanted someone who was going to throw everything at this thing," Peca said. "We wanted aggressive action. We wanted the kitchen sink thrown at it. We were not going to settle for just managing it."
In the middle of this flurry of medical activity the couple still found ways to maintain their home life. Hoch went back to work, and a within weeks took a planned vacation. Two weeks after his surgery he, his wife, their two sons, and a friend of one of the sons went snowshoeing in Vermont.
In the meantime Dr. David Korones of Strong Memorial Hospital was reviewing Hoch's biopsy and his MRI. He offered to try a stem cell transplant. When Hoch agreed, Korones harvested thousands of good stem cells from his body and sent Hoch off for 37 days of radiation treatments.
"Part of the radiation was done on my back," Hoch said. "When I came out I had a thin vertical line on my stomach that was never there before so I guess I got a full dose."
After recuperating from the radiation Hoch went back to Rochester in July where Korones gave him 17 days of chemotherapy. Then he transplanted the harvested stem cells back into Hoch's body.
According to Hoch and Peca the early post-operative results appear to be positive. Hoch returned home July 27, and two weeks ago returned part time to his job as an attorney with GE.
"I can't kayak or run marathons, and I sort of shuffle when I walk but I feel pretty good," he said. "I take a rest in the afternoons and I shuffle down the road a little farther each day on my walks."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Hoch has not lost his ability to see humor wherever it appears. While he was in Strong Memorial Hospital he noticed a nun and asked that a priest be sent so he could receive communion. Because of all the chemotherapy Hoch said he found himself a bit groggy and tired by the time the priest arrived, but his head cleared immediately when he heard the priest giving him the last rites.
"I looked up and said, "Gee Father, do I look that bad because I don't really feel all that bad," Hoch said, with a laugh.
Peca and Hoch are still amazed at the series of events that led them to find a doctor so close to home willing to try stem cell transplant.
Other potential locations were Duke University in Durham, N.C., and St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
"Had we not had the connection to Dr. Kramer through Catie I don't know where we'd be," Peca said. "Catie told me whenever I saw a lady bug that was her, and I've been seeing a lot of them recently."
Hoch is thankful he has a good health plan and gave high marks to his.
"Some things that I would need at Strong were a $15 co-pay," he said, "and someone else with another plan would need the very same thing and it was $260 co-pay. Thank God GE has a good health plan. You don't know how much that means."
Peca admits she is a bit sad to bring an end to the Catiebug and all the other foundation fund raising activities. The sponsorship for the race is being transferred to Nick's Fight to be Healed, a foundation formed in memory of Nick Camaratta, a Shenendehowa student who died of leukemia in 2008.
The Catie Hoch foundation will continue to dispense information to anyone who asks for help and will continue to accept donations, but its active fund raising efforts will cease.
"We will always be there to help people however we can," Peca said, "but our gala, the softball games, our Outback lunches, and the Catiebug will end. This is a special community, one with a big heart. But we feel that it's time for us to pass the torch."
The Catiebug race will be held on Clifton Common starting at 12 p.m. Sept. 27 with the Fun Run. The two mile walk starts at 12:45 and the 5K run at 1 p.m.
The Web site for the Catie Hoch Foundation can be found by clicking here.
