At age five, some kids have won pee-wee sports championships or perhaps a class spelling bee, but for Luke Fochtman of Okemos, Mich., his fifth birthday marked his victory over a much larger foe — in a life-or-death battle with childhood cancer, Luke has come out on top.
“Through 72 weeks of treatment, chemotherapy, 105 fevers, he never said ‘no’ to us,” says Luke’s mom Monica Fochtman, 36. “That to me was very inspiring and humbling. To be in the presence of that kind of grace gave me the courage to keep going,” she says. Though Luke’s type of pediatric sarcoma has a high recurrence rate, he is currently cancer free.
In honor of her little hero, Fochtman shaved her head this week alongside 45 other mothers of children with cancer as part of a larger effort to raise awareness for pediatric cancer. This “Shave for the Brave” event took place on Wednesday in the nation’s capital as part of a series events leading up to Friday’s the Second Annual Childhood Cancer Summit and meeting of the Congressional Pediatric Cancer Caucus.
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