The Flaherty Family Fund

Cancer. Brain cancer. Perhaps the most dreaded of all diagnoses. We are raising money to assist one of the closest and most loving families that we have ever known with their seemingly insurmountable medical bills due to this unforeseen and devastating disease that their son has contracted, their second of three beautiful children.

When the 21-year-old shy, stoic and athletic Devin Flaherty started experiencing headaches and visual disturbances just eight months ago, it was because a tumor the size of a golf ball was growing in the center of his brain and had blocked the normal outflow of fluid from the brain's ventricles (inner chambers) to its surface. This required immediate neurosurgery for placement of a shunt tube to relieve the pressure on the brain. Following this, a biopsy of the tumor was performed, which showed a type of cancer that was supposed to be quite sensitive to chemotherapy, thereby giving him a favorable prognosis.

After three months of intensive chemotherapy locally here at a hospital in southeastern Virginia, Devin went to Duke University Medical Center to have the remaining tumor removed. However, the tumor had grown after the chemotherapy ended and could not be completely removed. Eight days after returning from Duke in January of this year, Devin collapsed at home due to sudden severe bleeding into the residual tumor. What ensued was three weeks in neurosurgical intensive care, followed by a transfer back to the local pediatric hospital for more chemotherapy which is where he still is and has been for the last two months. This latest chemotherapy has kept the tumor at bay, and he is preparing for yet another type to begin soon which will keep him in the ICU for another month.

Since that fateful day in January when he collapsed almost three months ago, Devin has not been home. He has not spoken since then nor can he walk. He cannot swallow, relying instead on tube feedings, yet cognitively he is 100% there. Although every day is a struggle, there is no quit in this young man or in his family. They are fighters, but they are crumbling under the weight of tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills for all of the neurosurgery, hospital intensive care and chemotherapy, not to mention the incidental expenses associated with travel to Duke. On top of all that, Connie, Devin's mother, has suspended both her job as a paralegal and her pursuit of a law degree to support her son physically and emotionally.

For those of you who do not know this family personally, just think about the people in your lives who put a smile on your face the instant you see them and greet you with open arms. Think about the people in your lives that you love being around because of the way they love each other and their friends. Imagine these things and you begin to know this family. Please help us help them.