A family in the East Bay is making ends meet as their toddler is battling a Stage 4, high-risk cancer.
On Friday, KRON4 met with Benjamin and his mom at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland where he’s been treated since he was diagnosed.
For 3 1/2 months, baby Benjamin has endured several rounds of chemotherapy and lost one kidney to the disease. His mother is in need of support as she tries to do all she can to boost his 40 percent chance to live as she hasn’t worked since.
In late February, 2-year-old Benjamin was diagnosed with life-threatening Stage 4 neuroblastoma cancer that’s attacked his nervous system.
“He just kind of jumped into my husband’s arms and my husband noticed right away there was something wrong,” mother Shannon Rutherford said. “There was a large mass on his abdomen and took him to the ER, and within 2 hours, they were using the word cancer.”
Ben’s mother says her youngest of four children was most likely born with the hard-to-cure disease out of a gene abnormality.
Ben had surgery to remove the mass along with one kidney because the tumor was growing, and he has had five rounds of chemotherapy.
But once the chemo stops, his mom says the cancer will come back with a 40 percent chance of survival.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize how much a cancer diagnosis really does impact your family and your finances,” Rutherford said.
The Rutherford family is now considering two different options to continue Benjamin’s fight against cancer.
The first is a stem cell transplant at UCSF, using cells that have already been harvested from Ben.T
They have a second, what they call a less toxic option that would require travel to New York, which the family is strongly considering because Ben only has one kidney left.
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