A Mother's Journey
/2007 Pulitzer Prizes -FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY Renée C. Byer
Absolutely heatbreaking story featured by the Sacramento Bee (reg. req. but worth the effort to read and view this story in full). Via A Welsh View, who has more direct links to images, and Robert Scoble who dares us not to cry...I lost.
Derek was diagnosed on Thanksgiving Day 2004 with neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer. He died, peacefully, on May 11, 2006.
Absolutely heatbreaking story featured by the Sacramento Bee (reg. req. but worth the effort to read and view this story in full). Via A Welsh View, who has more direct links to images, and Robert Scoble who dares us not to cry...I lost.
Reporter Cynthia Hubert and photographer Renée C. Byer met Cyndie French in May 2005, about six months after her son Derek Madsen was diagnosed with cancer. French invited the journalists to observe all aspects of the boy's care and to document its impact on him and his family. For the next year, Hubert and Byer spent countless hours with Derek and his friends and relatives at home, on family outings and during doctor visits, blood transfusions, surgeries and other treatments. All of the scenes in this story were witnessed by Hubert and Byer.
Cyndie holds Derek on May 8. He is on medication that hinders his speech and keeps him awake at night. Except for a few minutes while hospice nurses are with him, Cyndie spends nearly every moment of the day at his side.."I was exhausted beyond belief but I had to do this. He would call my name and always expects me to be there," Cyndie said.
Derek was diagnosed on Thanksgiving Day 2004 with neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer. He died, peacefully, on May 11, 2006.
DEREK MADSEN
November 16th 1994 - May 11th 2006
