Student Visionaries of the Year

I started noticing some things were "off" with my body. In early August 2022, my daughters noticed several large, unexplained bruises on my legs. I just brushed them off as being clumsy or running into something. Then, while lying in bed reading to one of my daughters, my lower jaw and lip went numb, like when you have Novocaine. I got up and moved around, and it got better.

Hello! My name is Madison, but that's not what you need to remember. The name you need to remember is Brodie. You see, I am joining the 2023 Student Visionaries of the Year campaign in honor of my childhood friend, Brodie. In November 2018, Brodie was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) while only in the 6th grade.

In October 2015, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. After growing up never getting sick, I had cancer. It was incredibly difficult to comprehend at the age of 13 that I was about to endure something most people won’t experience in a lifetime. I went through four rounds of chemotherapy and was in remission in January of 2016. Once you’re in remission, you believe that that’s the end.

In 2015, our identical twin daughters, Kenedi and Kendal, were diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) at three months old. After a brutal six months of living in isolation with them in one room at the hospital, the twins were released off treatment and were in remission. 

I am a 12 year survivor of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and was heavily involved with LLS when I was a patient going through treatment. I was a part of the Honored Hero program during elementary and middle school and would go speak and tell my story to schools in the Cincinnati tri-state area with my mother.