The valentines came from as far away as Canada and England. From New Yorkers and Californians, football players and Girl Scouts, friends and complete strangers.
They were homemade and store-bought, silly and serious, pink and red, of course, but also yellow, green, blue and rainbow-striped.
The valentines — enough to adorn the walls, windows and stairwell of the home Maggie shares with her parents, Erin and Pete, and 2-year-old brother, Patrick — are part of a massive outpouring of love and support she has received since being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in January. The next day, after an MRI, doctors told the DeVries that Maggie had diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a rare and very aggressive brain tumor. Only 200 to 300 Americans — mostly children — are diagnosed with DIPG each year, and the median survival time is nine to 12 months.
Radiation therapy is the standard treatment, but Maggie’s parents also enrolled her in a clinical trial at Lurie in which patients get medication intended to enhance the effectiveness of radiation. Chemotherapy has not been found to be effective against DIPG, Lenzen said. Wouldn’t it be great, Sapp thought, if friends and strangers sent Maggie Valentine’s Day cards? Maybe they could get people to send in 100 cards.
She was so excited to attend her kindergarten class via Zoom recently, that she woke up at 4 a.m., ready to get started.Maggie knows that she has a “silly spot” on her brain, and that she has to go to the hospital a lot to make sure the spot doesn’t get any bigger, Erin DeVries said.
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