Doucet named NSU dean of Arts, Sciences program
April 4, 2012
Treasure Hunters return to Houma in search of goods
April 4, 2012
When Susan Boudreaux’s granddaughter Maddie Boudreaux was in Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, battling osteosarcoma, she couldn’t take suffering of her flesh and blood and all the other children
She knew she had to help.
“You worry about your own, but then you see a hospital of sick and dying children, and you cannot do just nothing,” Boudreaux said. “It’s such an uncertain disease, and we are so blessed to still have Maddie. It changes your whole life. You become attached to other children in the other hospital. It’s like losing your own when something happens to them.”
Boudreaux and her husband Ray started fundraising efforts through CureSearch for Children’s Cancer, an organization that funds and supports cancer research and aids in providing information and research for those effected.
They started the fight the day Maddie was diagnosed.
It all began in December of 2008 when Maddie was just 5-years-old. The little girl fell in church and broke her arm.
“She had an X-ray the following January, and the doctors originally thought it was a bone cyst,” Boudreaux said. “She went in for the operation and the surgeon immediately came out and told us it was not a cyst, but he couldn’t tell us exactly what it was. The pathology work was sent off, and the phone call came on March 13 that it was bone cancer.”
Maddie is the daughter of Jamee and Jaime Boudreaux, the Boudreaux’s son and daughter-in-law.
“I remember every appointment, every phone call,” she said. “Everyone rallied around us, got us through that first year. Churches, family, friends, and businesses, they all helped. I don’t know that we would have done without them.”
When the cancer was discovered, it had spread to the growth plate in Maddie’s upper arm.
“Her arm bone is now titanium and plastic, and the doctors took muscles from her back so that she would have muscles in her arm,” Boudreaux said. “The arm no longer grows, and she has a spring that is heated up to make her arm grow. The doctors monitor the length and growth of her other arm, and she has had the spring heated three times since the eight and a half hour surgery she had about three years ago.”
Since having chemotherapy, Maddie’s body scans have been clean for the past two years, and the current, temporary spring in her arm will have to be replaced in a few years with a permanent device.
“At this point, we can be semi-happy. It’s been a long journey,” she said. “When Maddie was diagnosed, we didn’t even know that the word osteosarcoma meant. You learn a lot.”
Susan Boudreaux has a poster board of photos of Maddie throughout the last three years, from days in the hospital to the latest images of a happy, smiling child, her hair cut into a flippy bob style and her hands holding a giant rainbow lollipop.
“Maddie is a spunky little thing, that smile on her face, that’s just her character. She and her twin brother Andrew just turned 8-years-old in March,” Boudreaux said. “She is a second grader at Bayou Black, makes As and Bs and is on the Honor Roll. She is my little hero. It’s rare for a child that young to have bone cancer. There is a high return rate for osteosarcoma, but we keep praying that it doesn’t return.”
The Boudreaux family’s journey on the fundraising road began when they chose CureSearch as a way to help not only their granddaughter, but also other children suffering from cancer.
“Ninety-six cents of every dollar raised goes to research,” Boudreaux said. “That’s why we chose to raise money for CareSearch.”
In the last three years, the Boudreauxs, who also serve on the CareSearch planning board, have raised more than $24,000.
“Last year we raised $13,000, and we have already raised $9,000 this year,” she said. “We hope to beat $13,000 this year.”
The next local fundraiser for Team Maddie will be from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Saturday at 404 Collins St. in Houma. Donations of sale items can be made by contacting Boudreaux through her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/suzybou92.
The Boudreaux’s are also planning an event with New Orleans Hamburger & Seafood Company and Elite Championship Wrestling, but the details are still being finalized.
The culmination of the Boudreaux’s fundraising efforts will be the CureSearch for Children’s Cancer Walk on April 14 at Audubon Park in New Orleans. Walkers can join the team or make donations in support of it by visiting their team Web page at www.curesearchwalk.org/neworleans/teammaddie.
“We already have 30 walkers, and people from Houma drive there to participate in the event,” she said. “We have some amazing people in Houma. In all the fundraisers we have had, we have been able to get just about everything. We are proud of Houma and that local businesses get behind us.”
Boudreaux also spoke of her desire to start a walk in Houma.
“As of right now, Team Maddie is our top team for this year’s CureSearch Walk, and they do it all through local fundraising in Houma,” said Kelly Bush, CureSearch’s regional development manager for the Southwest Region. “They have perfected the third party fundraiser, and they were one of our top five teams last year.”
According to Bush, money raised at the New Orleans walk is divided between the Children’s Oncology Network hospitals in the area, which are Tulane Medical Center, Children’s and Ochsner.
“We are also trying to organize a cook-off and poker run for later this year,” Boudreaux said. “We’ll take any fundraiser anyone wants to do. I’m not bashful. The day I walked in and saw Maddie and all the other kids at Children’s Hospital, I knew our lives would never be the same. That’s why we do what we do.”
Maddie Boudreaux, daughter of Jaime and Jamie Boudreaux of Bayou Black, plays at the Bayou Black Recreation Center. The young girl was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in March of 2008, and has been cancer-free for two years.
