Thinking of Theo
"Theo Stephen lays in his bed after having portions of a malignant brain mass removed at University of Maryland Medical Center, Aug. 30, 2011."
Caveat: I try and leave family and personal posts off my blog, but this deserves some attention.
As journalists, we are supposed to be biased. We uphold strong ethics and follow them with strict guidelines. That often means holding our opinions to ourselves and not becoming part of the story.
However, when you're already part of the story, you can only try and help. That's the case with K's nephew - Theo.
Following his first birthday party, some adverse conditions had him in the hospital. He would be intubated and then go unresponsive before having surgery on Monday.
During the procedure, a majority of a posterior fossa tumor was removed, but hard portions near the brain stem were unable to be eliminated. The tumor was found to be malignant - otherwise know as containing cancerous cells.
Theo is still under the care of the pediatric intensive care unit and will receive oncology treatment.
Having worked stories similar to these in the past, I did what I thought would best help Theo and his family. I set a website and foundation in which friends, family and those in the community can donate contributions to help with Theo's medical support.
I don't ever ask of anything from anyone, but I ask you to please donate, and if you cannot financially do so at this time, to please forward on the link. I'm also offering that anything does make a donation over $50 that I will send you a 11x14 signed print free of charge.
If you're donating from this blog post, please email me to let me know what print you'd like. There will be a Paypal payment option soon, too.
Thank you for reading. To find out more about "Thinking of Theo" please visit | http://www.thinkingoftheo.org/
posted by Patrick Smith at 10:14 AM
1 Comments:
Each of these posts has brought a tear to my eye. For one, I feel like I am looking at my own son each time you post an image of Theo. Second, I am happy you are capturing these moments. Regardless of the circumstances or outcome Theo's parents will treasure these photos. Our son did not survive his ailments (different than Theo's) and we only have one half-way decent photo of him that has been on our wall since capturing it. He was in the condition you see Theo in this photo and we treasure that photo greatly because of the memories it allows us to recall and the opportunity it provides us to share our experience with others. Thank you for making these images of Theo and sharing them with us. Little Theo and his family are in my thoughts and prayers.
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