Beating the odds
Like most families, Steve and Patty Luttrell are all smiles as the holiday season approaches. But their joy transcends the usual excitement of exchanging gifts and goodwill; it celebrates the third year in which son Jeff can claim victory over the ravaging disease that nearly killed him.
Jeff, 15, is one of five boys who fought a life-and-death battle with childhood leukemia during a years-long research program at University Medical Center in Tucson. The painful, grueling treatment regimen included five years of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.
Of the five original patients, only two still survive.
Now free of symptoms and with the disease in remission, Jeff says he wants to give back to those who helped energize his winning struggle: researchers at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
To show their appreciation for the society’s role in Jeff’s recovery, Luttrell family members announced they would raise $6,000 for cancer research. They held garage sales and fundraisers earlier this year, reaching about half their goal. But their next undertaking proved even more ambitious.
Calling on their Warner Ranch neighbors and friends around the country, the Luttrells collected more than 100 recipes that had become family favorites over the years. The recipes were compiled into a 57-page cookbook, illustrated by Jeff, a budding artist, and printed with $500 in funding from The Lucas Realty Group.
The anthology of proven, family-pleasing recipes is available for holiday gift giving for a $10 donation, all of which is earmarked for pediatric leukemia and lymphoma research.
While cookbook sales enter what the Luttrells hope will be a rewarding season, Jeff has his own agenda: speaking both formally and informally to groups whose children now confront the same issues he did five years ago.
“It’s really been good for him to find a way to give back,” says Patty, a pediatric nurse. Also, she says, “Jeff really wants to help find a cure.”
As part of Jeff’s presentation to outside groups, he shares his memories, both good and bad, of the long treatment process.
Says Patty:
“By the time you get to the hospital, you know you’re going against the odds. You’re hospitalized seven weeks (during the transplant procedure), then another couple of months going to the clinic for 6 or 7 hours a day.
“It is a horrible, horrible experience that (Jeff) likens to medieval torture.”
For the first few years following a bone marrow transplant, the prospects for full recovery remain elusive. It was during those years that three of Jeff’s co-patients succumbed to the disease.
A fourth has relapsed and is now awaiting another transplant.
Only Jeff has managed to get through the most critical recovery phase and is now closer to the five-year mark, when doctors say the risk of a relapse is greatly minimized.
Until then, the family marks the days and does what it can to help generate funding so others won’t have to suffer the same agonies.
If you’d like to help by purchasing a copy of the Luttrells’ cookbook, see the inset for a location near you.
