June 2, 2004

Seventh grader proudly marches in Relay For Life Survivor Parade

Twelve-year-old Cameron Stanley looks like any pre-teen except maybe she has one of the happiest grins ever seen. It’s hard to believe the seventh grader from Holy Spirit School, who lives in Willow Glen, once was quite sick with a childhood cancer called Wilm’s Tumor.

Cameron was first affected at 4-years-old, says her father Jeff Stanley. She was in kindergarten and had been complaining of a tummy ache and that she couldn’t sleep. Her mother laid down with her and noticed a hard bulge in Cameron’s side.

“It was 10 p.m., but my wife was worried that it might be appendicitis. She took Cameron to the doctor the next morning and after an emergency ultrasound they realized there was a tumor or some sort of growth and sent us to Lucille Packard Hospital. They operated shortly before Cameron’s fifth birthday, took out a 3-pound tumor and removed one kidney. Cameron weighed about 40 pounds at the time, so the tumor was nearly one-tenth of her body weight,” said Stanley.

About a year later, he said, the tumor came back attached to her adrenal gland. Cameron had another operation, this time removing her adrenal gland and then radical chemotherapy. Since that chemo session finished, Cameron has been cancer-free—a period of five years.

In the midst of all these problems, Cameron got the exciting option to act in a movie with Robin Williams. The director of “Patch Adams,” Tom Shadiac, was looking for young cancer patients to be in the movie as extras. Cameron was one of the children selected. She did so well as an extra, that they asked her to help finish the movie back in North Carolina. She did.

“Robin Williams always makes me smile and laugh. During the movie he just hung out with us kids. He referred to me as ‘Little Budda’ because of my bald head. He played games with us,” she said of working with Williams. “He’s just a great guy, he doesn’t make a big fuss or to do about anything,” added Stanley.

Cameron’s favorite subject in school is social studies and history. “I like to know about the world and what has happened,” she said. She hopes to attend either Presentation High School or join her older sister Candace at Archbishop Mitty. She likes to play baseball and volleyball, she played softball last year and she collects coins.

“Some of the money I made from being in “Patch Adams” I invested in my dad’s company (Bad Boys Bailbonds) and some I invested in coins,” she said. Stanley added that she’s been to numerous coin shows some in Southern California and some as far as Florida. “She has the number-one set of Lincoln pennies in the world,” her father said.

Cameron has a younger sister named Chandler who is 5-years-old and shyly admitted to a boyfriend named Michael.

Good luck Cameron, here’s hoping your illness is all behind you.