Fletcher Allen, a Vermont university hospital and medical center, serves all of
Vermont and the northern New York region. Located in Burlington, Fletcher Allen is a regional, academic healthcare center and teaching hospital in alliance with the University of Vermont.
About the 2010 Champion
Look into 15-year-old Conor Delphia's eyes and you see a boy who dreams of becoming a fighter pilot some day. But for now, the fight is taking place right here on the ground: it's all about beating cancer.It was in May of 2009 that Conor began feeling tired. His mother Meegan thought it was just one of the many viruses going around Williston Central School; it wasn't until Conor's classmates noticed a strange rash on his legs that they decided to investigate further.
After getting some blood work done at Fletcher Allen, Conor and Meegan went back to their Williston home. Today, Meegan says, she doesn't remember being especially concerned - she still assumed that Conor was just fighting a virus.
At 5:30 that night, the phone rang - a call Meegan will never forget. "You need to bring Conor to the Emergency Department," she heard. "He has leukemia."
Sitting in an exam room in the ED, Meegan sat there thinking, could it only have been a few hours ago that we thought he just had the flu? And then Heather Bradeen, M.D., walked in. "The minute I talked to her," says Meegan, "I knew everything was going to be okay."
Conor began a long, rigorous treatment regimen. Since that first night last May, he's been on a two-month cycle of treatment, receiving both inpatient and outpatient chemotherapy. Ask him how it's been going, and he'll look you right in the eye and tell you it stinks. But he's managed to hold onto his sense of humor, evident in the t-shirt he wears that proclaims, "my oncologist is better than your oncologist," and evident in the quiet confidence he has that someday soon he'll be back to snowboarding, playing basketball, and just being a regular high school student.
Conor and Meegan want people to know how every staff person he's come in contact with --- from the Child Life staff to the nurses to his physicians - has made the whole experience just a little easier.
"I don't think we have met one person here who didn't make us feel like they're part of this big family," says Meegan. "It's been the constant that keeps us going."
As for what keeps Conor going, look in his eyes. You'll see the humor and resilience of a boy far beyond his years -- and the determination of a fighter pilot.
