Each Year, a portion of the proceeds from the Mayors Day 5k goes to help a deserving local family.
Our 5K Recipient for 2021 – Meet Davian
Davian Keith Simpson was a happy, healthy, smart and carefree eight-year-old boy who enjoys going to the beach and playing video games.A student at Franklin School in Union, he loves watching Garfield cartoons, Transformers movies, DC Nation and Marvel. Davian loves his cat,“Midnight” and puppy,“Cujo.”The youngest of his siblings, Davian has four brothers and one sister. He is also growing up with his two nieces and two nephews who are around the same ages and are very close.
In November 2020, he started having headaches, vomiting, vision loss, lost mobility on his right (which made it hard for him to walk)and difficulty swallowing.
In December, Davian’s Dad took his sister and him to IHOP . Davian started vomiting while eating, came home, and told his mother.She immediately took him to Overlook Medical Center.
The ER team ran MRI and CT scans. The doctor from Neuro-oncology came in to talk to the family about Davian’s condition. According to his Mom, Shanita Gordon, “that’s when time and the world stopped for me.” Davian then started radiation therapy at Morristown Medical Center.
After being on the steroid Dexamethasone for about a week and having radiation for four days, Davian’s condition worsened. After a trip to the ER again, they discovered that Davian’s heart rate was dropping, his blood pressure was high and he had an excessive amount of brain fluid building up.If he did not undergo surgery right away, the family could lose him.
His diagnosis: DIPG “diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma,” a type of brain tumor found in the brainstem known as the pons.
Shanita stayed at the hospital with him for three weeks and then Davian was released home where he has PT and OT.He has made big strides and can now move his whole right side and is learning to stand and walk again. It is very hard for him, but he is pushing through.
There is no known treatment for Davian’s condition. The family takes everything day by day, consulting with doctors regarding other treatments;but they are only in Phase One of their trials which can be good or bad depending on the patient.
