4 JUNE 7, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Glendale rallies around teen battling rare cancer
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
As president of the 104th Precinct
Civilian Observation Patrol
(GCOP) — the neighborhood’s
volunteer patrol unit that assists local
police — Mark Pearson interacts with
the NYPD oft en. But when 104th Precinct
offi cers marched by him during
the Ridgewood-Glendale Memorial
Day Parade on May 28, he was shocked
to see at least 30 of them wearing the
same yellow rubber bracelet with
white lettering around their wrists.
The bracelets bear the name of
Mark’s daughter Brooke, a 13-year-old
student at P.S./I.S. 119, who is now fi ghting
for her life aft er being diagnosed
with a rare form of spinal cancer.
“We had no idea,” Pearson said of the
offi cers’ show of support. “It chokes us
up every time we think about it.”
Yet, the 104th Precinct was just the
latest on a growing list of supporters
in the community who have rallied
around the Pearsons since word of
Brooke’s diagnosis began to spread.
But what exactly the diagnosis
entails is something that neither the
family nor the doctors have been able
to fully understand.
Mark and his wife Trish welcomed
the Ridgewood Times into their
Glendale home on May 31 to share
Brooke’s story. While she did not feel
well enough to participate in the conversation,
she was listening in the next
room, curled up on the couch.
Brooke hasn’t walked since May 14.
It all began 10 weeks ago with a
feeling of numbness and tingling in
Brooke’s right hand as if her arm had
fallen to sleep, except the sensation
wasn’t going away. Before long, the
feeling spread down her arm and into
the neck area. At that point, an orthopedic
doctor recommended that Brooke
receive physical therapy twice a week.
During three weeks of physical
therapy, Brooke started feeling pain
in her back and neck and the numbing
sensation spread into her left arm. A
neurologist then told the Pearsons that
the symptoms were probably just anxiety
and stress related without even
examining Brooke.
With the misinformation causing
her parents to fear the worst, Brooke’s
condition continued to worsen. The
Pearsons took matters into their own
hands by getting Brooke’s braces
removed just so that she could get
an MRI.
“At that point, her left leg was going
numb and her gait was off ,” Trish said.
“Her leg would just give out while
she was walking or standing, and she’d
just fall,” Mark added.
The day aft er getting the MRI, Trish
went prom dress shopping with
Brooke for P.S./I.S. 119’s eighth grade
prom, but she had to help Brooke get
dressed for the fi rst time since she was
a baby, Trish said. The day aft er that,
Brooke was lying in bed in so much
pain that the Pearsons took her to the
emergency room.
Brooke didn’t want to go because
she was afraid of ruining her perfect
school attendance record she had been
so proud of over the past fi ve years,
Trish said.
Brooke spent the next 12 days in
the hospital getting MRIs, CT scans,
spinal taps and biopsies, and doctors
fi nally determined that small tumors
were on Brooke’s spine aff ecting her
nerves. But because Brooke’s case was
so rare, the doctors were only able to
say it was a sarcoma — which grows
on connective tissues in the body such
as bones, cartilage, tendons, muscles,
nerves, fat and blood vessels.
To this day, doctors have still not
been able to identify a more specifi c
type of cancer or give the Pearson
family any sort of prognosis.
“We saw, like, seven diff erent doctors
and it didn’t seem like they were
talking to each other,” Mark said. “I’m
grateful that all these diff erent groups
were trying to fi gure out what was
going on, it’s just the communication
wasn’t coming back to us, and we
couldn’t relay anything to her.”
Once Brooke was finally able to
come home, Trish posted something
on Facebook to let her friends and family
know why the Pearsons had been
diffi cult to contact over the past few
weeks. The news spread more quickly
than they ever imagined from there.
Ronnie Roth, the secretary for
104COP, asked Mark if he could start a
GoFundMe page, and within nine days,
the campaign has brought in $8,734.
Another 104COP member’s daughter
— whom Mark said had never even
met Brooke — started to sell the yellow
bracelets worn by police to raise
money for the Pearsons.
“I was astounded by the amount of
support,” Mark said. “People who we
don’t even know … I go up on the Go-
FundMe page and I see names where I
was like, ‘who’s that person?’”
The Pearsons then started their own
campaigns with purple bracelets and
T-shirts with a butterfl y logo designed
by Brooke’s cousin. The bracelets and
shirts read “Team Brooki,” a nickname
Brooke uses as her social media handle.
She wants to be a YouTube and
Instagram star one day, Mark said.
Dozens of people wanted the Team
Brooki shirts, including another GCOP
member who participates in the Middle
Village Relay for Life every year
who changed their team name for the
event and will wear Brooke’s shirts.
Brooke is receiving chemotherapy
and her case is being studied by oncologists
at Cohen Children’s Medical Center
and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer
Center; her next treatment is on June
13. While she has had many emotional
peaks and valleys in the past few weeks,
Mark said, her spirit was no more evident
than when she decided she wanted
to surprise all of her friends at school
aft er getting out of the hospital.
“We hid in one of the closets and the
class was in there, she came in and they
were all so happy to see her,” Mark said.
“She broke down crying … she didn’t
think a lot of people even knew about
her or felt that way about her.”
If you wish to donate to the Pearson
family to help support Brooke’s
treatments and the extra measures
the family must now take to make
her comfortable at home, visit www.
gofundme.com/brooke-pearsonmedical
fund.
Photo via Ronnie Roth/Go Fund Me
Brooke Pearson, 13, is suff ering from a rare form of spinal cancer.
Saluting patriots
in Ridgewood
Photo courtesy of Barbara Toscano
More than 250 members of the Peter Cardella Senior Center honored
service members who gave their lives in defense of the U.S.
during an early Memorial Day vigil on May 24. Shown above are
veterans at the center who served in either World War II, the Korean War
or the Vietnam War. They’re pictured alongside Barbara Toscano, executive
director of the Peter Cardella Senior Center.
/brooke-pearson-medical-fund
/brooke-pearson-medical-fund
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