The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has named the 2007 Boy and Girl of the Year, and the girl honor goes to Lucy Gunelson.
Lucy, who is from St. Paul, has grandparents, Dan and Lauretta Kapphahn, who live in Detroit Lakes.
Lucy, 4, is in remission.
Lucy loves to dance and jump; as long as there is music, she is dancing. She loves to go to the park and play with her puppy, Olie. She likes to draw circles and play with playdough.
Her current favorite movie features Barbie in "The 12 Dancing Princesses." She loves to cuddle with her mom and dad, Rose and Jeff, and watch "The Upside Down Show." She loves noodles, cheese and toast.
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This could probably fit the bill for most if not all of the girls in Lucy's class. What's amazing about her story, however, is considering that in 2004, when she was only 2 years old, Lucy was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia.
Her mother Rose Gunelson said, "My Lucy was diagnosed at St. Paul Children's Hospital on Tuesday, Aug. 10, at 3:30 p.m. with leukemia, three days before we closed on our house in St. Paul. We had moved from South Dakota and were staying with family.
"We assumed that her moodiness, weakness and lack of sleep and appetite was just the transition from moving. I thought her minor leg pain was from a growth spurt."
Lucy didn't see the family's new home until she was released from the hospital almost a month later.
If a child is going to be diagnosed with a blood cancer, then ALL is the best you can hope for because the rate of remission then was around 86 percent, Rose said.
However, Lucy endured many complications over the course of two years that were a result of severe side effect issues. She suffered from an infected marrow site, reactions to her morphine drip to relieve pain, horrible constipation,and slow and painful recovery from an infected bug bite. She completed her chemotherapy in the fall of 2006, then another complication set in, shingles.
"Not only was this very scary for all of us because we thought she had relapsed, but also Lucy was in terrible pain because her shingles affected her entire small body," he mother said.
With all of these complications now behind her, Lucy can run and dance with the rest of her friends.
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In spring 2006, Lucy was a patient honoree for the Society's Team in Training Anchorage marathon. Participants trained (and fund-raised) to walk or run half or full marathons. While the Man and Woman of the Year philanthropist-candidates will not be training for an endurance sport, like TNT-ers they will be raising funds and awareness in honor of Lucy.
Today, it is the world's largest funder of blood cancer research.
The 2006 Man & Woman of the Year campaign raised $96,000. This year's goal $150,000.
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Minnesota 2007 Man & Woman of the Year fundraising competition will kick off April 12 and ceremoniously wrap up nine weeks later, June 15, at a Grand Finale Gala where the campaign's top fundraisers will be celebrated as The 2007 Man & Woman of the Year.
A select group of philanthropist-candidates have been busy strategizing with their own teams; the focal point of their individual efforts will be The 2007 Boy & Girl of the Year: Sam Waldron and Lucy Gunelson.
