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Amanda Haddock: May is Brain Tumor Awareness Month, something that my family feels the impact of every day

Amanda Haddock/LinkedIn

May 8, 2025, 10:09

Amanda Haddock: May is Brain Tumor Awareness Month, something that my family feels the impact of every day

Amanda Haddock, Manager, Global Accounts (Meeting & Event Site Selection Expert) at HelmsBriscoe, shared on LinkedIn:

“May is Brain Tumor Awareness Month, something that my family feels the impact of every day. My son, David, was a healthy, active 16 year old who enjoyed playing soccer, reading, cooking, and hanging out with friends and family. He was kind, funny, and delightfully weird.

One day he had an excruciating headache that couldn’t be eased with medication. Brain scans showed he had a relatively small mass (2cm), and so we thought we had caught the disease early enough to be able to save him. We were wrong. Despite countless hours of research and the latest clinical trials, David died 20 months after his diagnosis.

I don’t have adequate words to explain how much our whole family misses him. His spirit still drives us, and much of our time is spent on trying to find cancer cures so that other families won’t suffer this kind of pain.

If I seem a little ‘off’ this month, it’s because this awareness month is also the month that he died, so it’s a heavy load some days. David had an almost ever-present smile, and so I want to give anyone reading this some hope and a reason to smile, especially as we come up on the anniversary of his death on May 11th.

His wish for us to continue helping others is absolutely being fulfilled. Thanks to so many passionate individuals, Dragon Master Initiative continues to be a force in the world of cancer research.
We’ve learned so much about the disease that killed David, and researchers now have specific gene mutations to target. This is an important step toward finding cures.
David lived for 20 months, which was well beyond the 1 year average, but now we are regularly seeing patients live beyond the 2 year mark.

If you’d like to make a difference, we are encouraging folks to join our ‘Strength in Numbers’ monthly giving program. For as little as $5/month, you can make an impact on cancer research. Philanthropic support of research is particularly critical in these uncertain days. Please do what you can to make sure we give kids like David a fighting chance.”

See this impactful insight about Dikembe Mutombo’s Battle against Brain Cancer on OncoDaily.