Thankful People: 'Brody's Bunch' helps child with brain-stem cancer

While rooting on their son playing in a baseball game the Friday night of Fourth of July weekend, Mandi Gard and her husband received a phone call that would forever change their family's lives.

It was on that very weekend that the Jackson family learned of their son's diagnosis of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a rare stage IV malignant brain stem cancer.

"It all seemed like a daze," Gard said. "It was a very long weekend."

The Gards said everything began to unravel the week prior to the Fourth of July when their youngest, 9-year-old Brody, began pitching and hitting oddly during his baseball games. After making the all-star baseball team just two weeks earlier, it quickly caught his parent's attention when Brody began hitting people while pitching and swinging away from the ball. He told his parents he was having double vision.

On July 2, they took him to the eye doctor to learn that his vision was 20/20. Sensing the problem to be greater than vision, the eye doctor urged the Gards to take Brody to the hospital for further examination. He had a magnetic resonance imaging done, and they received the results later in the evening while at the baseball game that Brody had a lesion the size of a large grape in his brain.

On the morning of July 5, the Gards were referred to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., where the diagnoses of diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma was determined.

When word of Brody's condition was heard in Jackson, a support group quickly formed and rallied to organize a benefit to help the Gards.

Rachelle Weber, a Jackson resident and family friend of the Gards, sent a text message to eight other couples to form at meeting at the Jackson Dairy Queen.

"From there it kind of just exploded," Weber said.

The group, Brody's Bunch, began preparing a dinner, dance and silent auction. With more than 400 items donated and more than 600 people in attendance, the fundraiser exceeded the expectations of all involved.

Robert Brodie, a Jackson resident and friend of the Gards, assisted Weber with many of the organizational aspects of the fundraiser. He said he was touched by the fact that "when you get a group of ordinary people together, you truly get amazing things."

The Gards said that witnessing the community come together with such great efforts to help their family was a humbling experience.

"We feel very inspired by everyone around us," Gard said. "They're fighting just as hard for Brody."

Brody's father agreed by saying, "It certainly makes you proud to be a member of this community."

Since his initial treatments, Brody is able to live at home and attend school while continuing his twice daily treatments of chemotherapy and sessions of physical and occupational therapy three times a week. Every six weeks they travel to St. Jude for a checkup.

The Gards said they are thankful this holiday season to have Brody at home.

"He gets up every day with a smile," Gard said. "He pushes himself. That's how I know he's OK."

To learn more about Brody visit, http://www.brodysbunch.info/ and http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/brodysbunch/.