CNN’s René Marsh fights for change after losing 2 year-old son to pediatric brain cancer
CNN National Correspondent, René Marsh, is raising awareness about pediatric cancer after the death of her two-year son.
Video transcript
RENE MARSH: It's a really tough situation to see your child sick. But to see your child sick with cancer, and feeling the toxicities of cancer treatment, that really is unbearable.
BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Hey, everyone. I'm Brittany Jones-Cooper. And today, I'm talking to CNN national correspondent Renee Marsh who lost her two-year-old son Blake to brain cancer just last April. Now, she's on a mission to honor her son by raising awareness and funds for pediatric cancer research.
Welcome, Renee. I know you and your husband Kendrick welcome Blake at the beginning of 2019. Can you just take me back to that time?
RENE MARSH: March 14, 2019 was to this day, it remains the best day of my life. That was the day that I became a mom. I got to meet this person who had been growing inside me for nine months. And he was a very happy, and just fun, and smiley baby up until 9 months old.
Around that time, we started to notice Blake could no longer with one of his eyes look to the right. So we took him to an ophthalmologist. They said, if this doesn't improve, we are going to want an MRI. The thought of an mRNA for my nine-month-old just seemed very scary.
December 22nd, his eye was now puffy. So we went to the ER, and we never came home that evening. I could read the body language of the doctor before they even said the words.
He said that your son has a fast moving aggressive tumor right in the center of his brain. And that was how our cancer journey with Blake began.
BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: And what was the prognosis at that point?
RENE MARSH: The first thing was to do surgery to get as much of the tumor out as possible. And then once they were able to do that, we were presented with a cancer plan. What that involved was a series of chemotherapy drugs. All of those drugs were created for adults decades ago. They dose it down to the size of a child's body, a nine-month-old. 40-year-old chemotherapy drugs made for adults. And that was his best shot at survival.
We went through the chemotherapy. We did cycle one. And at the end of cycle one, Blake had a toxic reaction to one of the chemotherapy drugs. And he went into cardiac arrest.
These drugs weren't designed with a child specific type of cancer in mind. We saw some successes like Blake was in remission. And I say remission, I mean, the cancer was not detected on MRI for about seven months. But then it came back.
BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Why do you think there hasn't been more focus on doing research with childhood cancers?
RENE MARSH: When you look at the numbers, more adults get cancer than children. And so that means that creating a cancer drug for adults is going to be way more profitable than serving a smaller market like children. Does that mean that they don't deserve the research? No.
BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: You launch the Blake Vince Payne star fund in his memory. So what is your goal with that?
RENE MARSH: Pineal blast Domo which is the type of tumor that Blake had. There is no substantial research. I am so determined to figure out this disease and wipe it out. And so that's what the Blake Vince Paine star fund is all about. It's raising money in conjunction with the pediatric brain tumor foundation, which is a non-profit.
All of the money that we raise is going to researching this disease that stole Blake from me.
BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: What if anything has helped you to navigate this period?
RENE MARSH: My husband number one he's like really been the rock for me and my family, and friends, and co-workers who have now become like family. Having that sort of love and support has been wonderful. I want all this terrible pain that I'm feeling for something positive to happen, so that no other mother has to feel this.
Because honestly, it is so bad that you would truly want to spare a stranger from it.
