Cancer Warrior Spotlight: Hudson

St. Jude patient Hudson, brain cancer

Hudson wasn’t gaining weight or meeting certain milestones when he was around 17 months old. One day, his parents received a call from the daycare that he wasn’t waking up from his nap. After visits to doctors and the emergency room, test revealed a brain mass “the size of a grapefruit,” said his mom Adisyn. He was airlifted to a children’s hospital in St. Louis.

Doctors diagnosed Hudson with choroid plexus carcinoma (CPC), which consists of rare tumors that start in the brain’s ventricles. Hudson underwent brain surgery and later was placed on a ventilator for four days. Doctors told his parents that they should prepare for the worst.

When the parents were desperate for a way forward, Hudson was referred to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. “We wanted to give him the best shot that he could get,” Adisyn said.

Hudson underwent additional brain surgeries to remove the mass and six rounds of chemotherapy at St. Jude. He went back home in the summer of 2022 and now returns to St. Jude for regular checkups every three months, his mother said. “It wasn’t until I walked through the doors of St. Jude that I felt calm,’’ Adisyn said. “St. Jude is like family to us.”

Hudson is walking, jumping and improving his balance every day. He loves trucks, cars and tractors, which he gets to ride at his grandparents’ farmland in Missouri. There, Hudson also gets to pet cows, chickens and donkeys. A highland cow born around the time that Hudson arrived at St. Jude was named “Jude” by his grandparents.