Racing to help community's children
<p>Jacelyn Lawson, namesake of Jacey’s Race, today and at age 4, when she was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, a cancer of the kidney. She lost the kidney, but has been in remission for 13 years. Lawson hasn’t wasted the gift of life: she is currently attending medical school at the University of Southern California. She plans to become a nephrologist — a kidney doctor. (Photos courtesy of Jacey’s Race)</p>
SANDPOINT — Maybe it’s fate, or destiny, if you prefer — the power or agency that supposedly predetermines and orders the course of events.
Actor Tom Hanks, in his character as Forest Gump, put it this way: “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floatin’ around accidental like on a breeze … but I think maybe it’s both.”
Jacelyn Lawson was 4 1/2 years old when doctors discovered she had a Wilms tumor, a cancerous growth that starts in the kidneys. It was metastatic, stage IV — it had spread throughout her little body. Doctors also found lumps in her lungs. Another in her abdomen was the size of a grapefruit.
“Jacey was really sick,” her mother, Nancy Jenkins said. “Her prognosis was poor.”
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