Meet this seriously amazing, brave little guy, Angelo Declerico. Angelo is a 5-year-old boy battling High-risk Neuroblastoma who was diagnosed in April 2024 at 3 years old. He's been fighting for over a year and will continue treatment until October of this year. For our 13th Annual Victoria Rose Fund benefit, we will be honoring and raising money for Angelo and the Declerico family. Neuroblastoma is an extremely rare childhood cancer, representing only 8% of childhood cancers. It is a solid tumor that develops from immature nerve cells (called neuroblasts) of the sympathetic nervous system and most commonly occurs in one of the adrenal glands situated in the stomach, chest, neck, abdomen, pelvis, or the nerve tissue that runs alongside the spinal cord. On the morning of April 18th, Angelo's Mother, Jennifer, noticed his heart beating extremely fast, so she immediately took him to his pediatrician. The doctor said his lungs sounded clear and that the heart beating fast was just because he was a toddler. After a few hours at home, Jen's mama-bear instincts kicked in. She knew something just wasn't right regarding the visit with his pediatrician. So she went with her gut and took him right to the ER at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for a second opinion. Later that night, after hours of waiting, many tests, and a tube thoracostomy (multiple tubes inserted in the chest and around his heart to drain the fluid) the doctor told Jennifer and her husband Michael that he found a mass in their little boy's chest and that it was Stage 3 High-risk Neuroblastoma. The Declerico family's life changed forever. Due to the significant amount of fluid around both lungs and his heart, he was admitted to CHOP and needed to start 5 rounds of chemotherapy right away. He underwent a very complicated surgery to remove the tumor that was on his bones, in his bone marrow, and wrapped around his aorta. Angelo completed 1 round of immunotherapy/chemotherapy, which then put him in respiratory failure. He was then rushed to the PICU where he was intubated and left on a ventilator for 3 days until he started breathing on his own. This led to a double stem cell transplant (A type of transplant in which a patient receives two courses of high-dose chemotherapy, each course followed by an infusion of their own healthy blood-forming stem cells. The stem cells are collected and stored before the first high-dose chemotherapy treatment.) Angelo’s mother explained that the transplant was very difficult for him. He received 5 days of high-dose chemotherapy that forced his ANC to plummet to zero (A zero ANC indicates a severe deficiency in the body's ability to defend against these pathogens). As he got his cells transferred back into his central line, they had to wait for his bone marrow to work and rebuild his ANC. Angelo was inpatient for a total of 12 weeks. After Angelo received his transplant, he moved on to 14 days of radiation and is currently receiving chemotherapy at home through his feeding tube and has to wear a CPAP machine to bed every night. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time the Declerico family has been on this battlefield. They have already gone through so much with Angelo's older sister. Their 10-year-old daughter was diagnosed at only nine months old with Neuroblastoma (in which the tumor was found on her adrenal gland) and fought for years; a true hero to her little brother. Angelo has two brothers, 7(Autistic) and 9(ADHD), who go for routine x-rays, urine tests, and ultrasounds of their chest and stomach to watch for any tumors, as all 4 siblings share the gene mutation (PHOX2B which is a gene that provides instructions for making a protein that is crucial for the development of the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary functions like breathing, heart rate, and digestion.) If you can imagine, as a stay-at-home mom, Jennifer is beyond overwhelmed with the special care of her children. Jen’s husband, Michael, is working 60-plus hours a week to provide for his family. Not only is the Declercio family struggling emotionally as Angelo continues to fight for his life, but they are currently burdened with Angelo’s medical bills piling up, home finances, gas for frequent hospital visits, and simply having food on the table for the family.