Remembering Suzanne Pavlat
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s goal is simple. To help children and families cope with cancer and to find a cure. Froggy 99.9 hosted a radio-thon Thursday and Friday and spoke with numerous families about their experiences with St. Jude. 47 ABC spoke with Jack Pavlat who lost his daughter Suzanne to cancer 15 years ago. But when she passed on, Jack stayed with St. Jude and continued to support their organization.
Suzanne Mae Pavlat made her debut to the world on November 3rd 1989. Born to Jack and Barbara, who had been married 18 years prior to her arrival, she’s what Jack calls, their miracle baby. But when Suzanne was just three years old, she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma.
Pavlat tells 46 ABC, “We were told that she would need extensive medical treatment and if we went through all the treatment she had maybe a ten percent chance of survival.”
Jack and Barbara were willing to do whatever it took help their child. So they headed to Norfolk where she received chemotherapy and then to Washington D.C. for a bone marrow transplant. Suzanne was in remission, but after 2 years, her cancer came back. A common theme for the next few years as they visited hospitals across the country. That’s when they say St. Jude reached out to them.
Pavlat tells 47 ABC, “St. Jude wanted her as a patient they thought they could help us, you know that day we got the one thing a parent needs more than anything else, and that’s hope.”
Throughout her stay at St. Jude, Jack said Suzanne was treated like any other child, regularly playing hide and seek with the doctors, and creating art that was hung up all over the hospital.
Pavlat tells 47 ABC, “She just enjoyed herself, she liked that idea that that was her hospital, and that’s they way they treated her.”
For the next 2 years the Pavlet’s were patients at St. Jude, but unfortunately after extensive chemotherapy and another bone marrow transplant, the cancer took Suzanne. She passed away at the age of 11.
Pavlat tells 47 ABC, “Almost 12 years later I carried her out of the house for the last time and all I could think about was all the things she didn’t get to do. And St. Jude is making it so its, other parents don’t have to go through that.”
Jack says those extra years that they got together with Suzanne was thanks to St. Jude. Pavlat tells 47 ABC, “I got those extra years all because of research, the research that was done at St. Jude if it hadn’t been for that research I just wouldn’t have gotten that time and you know that’s 5 years of I love you daddy’s and goodnight kisses and the things that really are important to us. She said daddy if I die will people remember me? And at that time I said well it’ll be my job to make sure you’re remembered.”
Pavlat says while at the hospital, him and his wife thought they were making memories for Suzanne, but they were actually making memories for themselves. St. Jude never sends any of their patients medical bills, everything is taken care of through the hospital, which is why donations are so important.
