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When the annual Wings radiothon rolls into action this week to raise money for local cancer patients, Joel and Laura Stevenson of Whitefish will help man the phones over the two-day fundraising blitz. It’s their way of giving back to an organization that helped them out when their son was battling a brain tumor.

Daniel Stevenson is now 13 and cancer-free. He’s a seventh-grader at Whitefish Middle School, a kind, good-natured boy who likes fly fishing and skiing. Life is largely back to normal for the Stevenson family, but figuring out what was wrong and then finding a path to recovery was a long road. For the Stevensons, that road led to Salt Lake City and back.

“We knew something was wrong for a couple of years,” Joel recalled about his son’s illness. “Daniel had been to different doctors; he was poked and prodded for a couple of years.”

There were various symptoms — headaches, fainting, running a fever — none of which immediately pointed to a brain tumor.

At the beginning of the 2015 school year, when Daniel was just starting fifth grade, he began losing his eyesight. He was fitted for glasses, but they didn’t help a bit. It was Dr. August Stein, a Kalispell ophthalmologist, who called for an MRI.

“Still, no one was thinking brain tumor,” Joel said.

The MRI showed a mass in Daniel’s brain, and the Stevensons were asked to quickly bring Daniel to the emergency room.

“When my wife and I heard [the diagnosis] there was a relief that we were going to get some answers,” Joel said. “I felt a calm assurance that comes from our faith.”

With no local pediatric oncologist available, the family was advised to send Daniel to a bigger hospital with that kind of expertise on staff. They chose Salt Lake City because they have family there. Within two hours Daniel and his mom were on an ALERT flight to Primary Children’s Hospital.

The family marveled at the expansive team of specialists that quickly assembled to treat Daniel. Initially they thought they’d have to operate on Daniel’s brain, but when they discovered the tumor was impinging on the optic nerve and pituitary gland, surgery was deemed too risky. Instead, he wound up taking a 30-day course of radiation.

“The consensus was it was the type of tumor that would react well to radiation,” Joel explained.

Daniel, whose eyesight had deteriorated to 20/800 in both eyes, was taken to the Moran Eye Center in Salt Lake City during his time there. Within three weeks of treatment, his eyesight was restored to 20/30, but he has some lingering sight problems.

As families dealing with cancer well know, it can be a struggle making ends meet when the cancer treatment is conducted so far from home. That’s often where Wings Regional Cancer Support can help. The organization helped with Joel’s transportation to Salt Lake City to visit Daniel, and helped bring Daniel and Laura home to Whitefish.

For working-class families like the Stevensons — he’s a cabinet maker and she does marketing for a dental firm — Wings can make a big difference in keeping the family connected during the crisis of cancer.

“It’s a great blessing to have an organization that helps with that,” Joel said.

The Stevensons helped with the radiothon last year as a small measure of their gratitude, and they’re planning for a repeat this year.

“That’s the way we can help,” Joel said. “We’re gonna be there.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.