This Saturday, the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation is organizing its annual Lemon Ball. One of the families recognized this year is the Oches family and their son Jude, who battled retinoblastoma as a young child.
For six-year-old Jude Oches, the moments of joy he now shares with his family come after years of uncertainty. It’s been a long journey for the Oches family.
“Jude was diagnosed when he was nine months old,” said his mother, Katie Oches.
Jude wasn’t even crawling when doctors noticed a small tumor on his retina, which turned out to be retinoblastoma.
“Since he was diagnosed, I don’t know if it was just my naivety, but I just thought, ‘Oh, he’s going to be fine,’” his father, Sam Oches, recalled. “The doctors will treat it.”
“We went through many different treatments, including radiation, plaque therapy, laser therapy and a few rounds of chemotherapy when he was a very small baby,” explains Katie Oches.
After some signs of hope, they received the devastating news that the tumor had not only relapsed, but had spread.
“I think that was the moment where we really knew the eye had to come out,” Sam Oches said. “Because if there was a chance that leaving the eye in would affect and worsen the prognosis and there was a chance it wasn’t 100 percent, then we had to make that decision to remove the eye.”
Jude now has a prosthetic eye, made to look just like his real eye, and behind the visible part is a symbol of Jude’s superpowers: a Batman logo. Jude, his big sister Mabel and his parents also use his powers to help Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. They’ve raised money in their Ohio neighborhood by hosting their own lemonade stand, and dad Sam is on the foundation’s advisory board.
“I was able to play an active role in supporting the organization with Alex,” he said.
A few weeks ago, Jude had what may have been one of his last MRIs and the scan came back clean.
“Having been through what Jude has been through, what our entire family has been through, we now have the opportunity to be part of other patients’ lives, and other families to support them through Alex’s Lemonade Stand,” said Sam. “We are now part of this family, a community of people who have experienced childhood cancer and as part of that community we want to lift each other up and support each other.”
The 19th Annual Lemon Ball benefiting Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation will take place on Saturday, January 18th at 6:30 PM at the Springfield Country Club.
CBS News Philadelphia’s Kate Bilo and Janelle Burrell will attend the event. For more information and to purchase tickets for the event, visit the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation website.
