Leo P.

There are fighters and there are fighters. Leo, who was born on May 28, 2003, and passed away on June 15, 2013, was a fighter’s fighter. He fought stage 4 brain cancer for five years, during which he had three different tumors removed, endured three years of chemotherapy, two years of radiation, and a failed experimental drug therapy.

Yet you would never know from his demeanor what he was going through. “Leo was so loving,” his mother says. “He loved to make people laugh. He liked to spend time with his family. He was so brave…he knew he was going to die and he tried to protect me from it.”

To the end, his thoughts always seemed to be more of other people than of himself and his own struggle. “We were at Disneyland four months before he died. He had so much fun! Before we went home, he looked up at me from his wheelchair and said, ‘Mommy, thank you for making all my wishes come true!’ I miss him so much…he loved his mommy so much.”