The Good Stuff: Welcome back, Jack

DEVILLE, La. (KSLA) - After nearly two years in and out of hospitals, and thousands of miles traveled in his fight against cancer, a young teenager named 14-year-old Jack Brown is finally back home.

For now.

He still has a long battle ahead against brain cancer, but Jack’s most recent return home to Deville, LA was a surprise of a lifetime for him and his mother, Caycee Cannon.

“We accidentally ended up here 13 years ago, but it turned out to be the best accident ever,” said Caycee, a single mother of two boys.

It’s an accident Caycee now sees as a blessing after her son’s diagnosis almost two years ago.

“January 27, 2021, I dropped him off at school and everything was normal,” remembered Caycee, a day that ended with Jack complaining of headaches, eventually landing him in the hospital.

Within weeks, Jack was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

“Very helpless,” describes Caycee, the feeling it leaves you with as a parent.

“The main part of parenting is protecting your child, but you’re absolutely helpless.”

Next stop for Jack was St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee for surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.

His recovery revealed early signs of success until a reccurrence this past January.

That led to experimental treatments for Jack with Caycee and her son making repeated trips to Michigan, the final one just weeks ago.

“Unfortunately when we went to Michigan for a checkup, Jack fell into a seizure. That’s when they discovered he had a mass that formed between the two tumors,” shared Caycee.

Doctors were deeply concerned, said Caycee, due to Jack’s struggles to regain strength, until just days before his 14th birthday on September 3rd.

“One of the things he kept saying, ‘I don’t want to spend my birthday in the hospital’,” Caycee shared about Jack’s anxiousness to return home.

Caycee was determined to give Jack a special welcome when they returned to Louisiana, so she reached out to a friend asking her to perhaps have friends meet them at the airport.

And her friend did not disappoint.

Shortly after they arrived at the Alexandria, LA airport from their latest trip to Michigan, Jack was greeted with a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ by a large group of Deville residents and others carrying signs and balloons.

“I was grabbing Jack’s arm and saying, ‘Oh my gosh. Look at this!”

And those who weren’t waiting for them inside the airport line the highways and roads between Alexandria and Deville cheering as they passed.

“He smiled a lot,” shared Caycee.

“I kept telling him that this is for you.”

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