High-School Helpers Shadle Students Donate Money And Food For Families Fighting Serious Illnesses

When Kyle Woodard first began seeing double, he assumed his X-ray vision was emerging.

He’d expected to become Superman since the day he learned someone had scrawled “super baby” on his earliest medical records.

Kyle was 4 then, too young to know about brain tumors and how they can change your eyesight, and then your life.

But he found out when he was 6. Surgeons spent 11 hours removing a large growth near his brain stem. By sixth grade, the cancer and medications to treat it stole most of his vision and his health, too.

Kyle’s mom, Lori Lynn Staley, quit work to be home during his last months of life. Christmas seemed beyond reach that winter, when she learned Shadle Park High School students “adopted” her family for the holiday.

Students donated money, food and gifts for Kyle, his mother, and his little sister, Libby — more than the family station wagon could hold. “My sister and I had to drive around for hours, just sobbing,” says Staley. “Their generosity was incredibly overwhelming.”

At least, she thought, Kyle’s last Christmas would be happy.

In the mound of presents, Kyle found an instant favorite: a gray sweatshirt highlighted with Shadle Highlanders green and gold. With it came an important new goal, one his mother credits with saving his life.

He wanted to grow up and attend the school that gave him Christmas.

“The burning need to go to Shadle helped me get through,” says Kyle, who’s now 16. “I just knew I had to be a Shadle Highlander as soon as I saw that shirt. I can’t explain it.”

Students from the North Side school have created Christmas for dozens of families in the past 15 years. With help from Deaconess Medical Center’s pediatric oncology ward, students choose families with children battling cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

“It’s our goal to give them a Christmas that’s worry-free,” says Kris Lindeblad, who teaches the leadership class that organizes the program.

“The last thing these people need is someone else crying over them. We try to make it a celebration.”

The families make wish lists, and every gift is purchased. Celebration or not, Lindeblad dabs at tears when recalling some wishes: The girl who asked for a haircut. The family that wanted socks. The mom who needed dishcloths.

Every year, some 1,000 students and Shadle supporters donate those gifts and cash besides — up to $1,000 for each of four or five families.

Students give up lunch money and pay from part-time jobs. Some classes compete to raise the most cash.

Teachers still talk about Elena Axton, a 1997 graduate who convinced her parents to give her presents to the children with cancer. This year, freshman Kelly Carlton raised money by giving tap-dance lessons to neighborhood kids.

Some of the recipient families are broke. Others appreciate the temporarily relief.

Heather Haynes, a 16-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis, received gifts for herself, her five siblings and parents last week. The family had decided against buying presents after purchasing plane tickets for a long-awaited visit to Texas to see the children’s grandparents.

Her father, Gary Haynes, was stunned by the pile of gifts. “It was way more than anything we’d have expected,” he says.

Shadle students enjoy spoiling the families, if only for a holiday. They routinely rush to stores for last-minute gifts, then wrap and label them into the night.

Tom Friedlander, a 17-year-old Shadle senior, says students who load presents into the families’ cars are overwhelmed by their gratitude. “Human life is so, you know, fragile. But you always get a look at how strong love and compassion is.”

Tammy Brickner, child life specialist at Deaconess, says parents with chronically ill kids are often so busy with medications, doctor visits and hospital stays that Christmas can send stress soaring.

“That is just one load off their shoulders,” says Brickner.

Kyle’s family understands the strain. In the decade since his brain tumor was discovered, he’s had two surgeries to remove it. He’s undergone round after round of chemotherapy. He reached his lifetime radiation limit in elementary school. Medication side effects have included asthma, osteoporosis, seizures and migraines.

After Shadle adopted Kyle for Christmas, his health gradually improved, says his mother. He began attending school again; morphine helped him get through half-days.

Three years later, as a freshman, he achieved his goal of becoming a Shadle Highlander. He’s also found a new role in the school’s Adopt-A-Family program.

Kyle doesn’t have strength to haul boxes or the stamina for late-night gift wrapping. Instead, he’s the program spokesman, inspiring new students to participate.

Each year, he wears the same gray Highlanders sweatshirt and repeats what he told his mom back in sixth grade: “There is a Santa; it’s called Shadle Park High School.”

Lindeblad, who oversees the program, shakes her head. “He has courage and strength I don’t even understand.”

Now Kyle is a junior with his heart set on graduating, finding a job and someday raising children.

He’s weaned himself from morphine and is learning Braille in case his vision fails entirely.

On Dec. 4, an MRI illuminated a spot in Kyle’s brain doctors hadn’t noticed before. Dr. Frank Reynolds guesses it’s scar tissue or a mark from the original surgery.

Only time will tell; doctors will look again in January. The intense radiation Kyle received as a child does increase his risk of developing another tumor, Reynolds says.

The worst is not knowing, says Kyle. “I’m not really scared or mad, but it’s irritating to have it in your head and not know what it’s doing.”

His ears, he says, have begun ringing; occasionally he sees bright flashes of light. And he doesn’t believe in Superman anymore.

On the way home from that last hospital visit - though their magic holiday was three weeks away - Kyle and his mom stopped to buy a Christmas tree.

“We wanted to celebrate this one for as long as we could,” says Staley.