Michael Little looked a bit awkward as he took to the stage at last year’s Mr. Hudson’s Bay. He shifted his weight back and forth, hands in his pockets. He giggled at times, and stumbled over his words.
In other words, he was a teenage boy.
Michael shared the story of how an odd lump on his stomach, which doctors were certain was just a patch of benign fatty tissue, led to a life-changing diagnosis in October 2016. After the initial surgery to remove the lump, doctors diagnosed Michael with undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma, an aggressive form of childhood cancer. Later it would be reclassified as Ewing-like sarcoma.
At Hudson’s Bay High School’s annual fundraiser for Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, Michael shared how the facility had become his second home, the doctors and nurses, his second family.
“My first clean scan came on June 7 (2017), and I was cancer free for six months,” he told the crowd. They burst into whoops and applause.
“This is going to be a bummer,” Michael said, smile still firmly planted on his face.
His cancer had returned, he told them. A scan in December 2017 revealed two tumors in his lungs. It would go on to spread to his hips, his spine. And on Oct. 28, 2018, this goofy, grinning boy died. He was 17.
Michael’s death is fresh for his family and friends. His shoes still hang from a rack in his bedroom. His video game equipment is gathering dust in the living room. But in the immediate aftermath of losing a son, a brother and a friend, those close to Michael are working to ensure his name and suffering are not forgotten.
Michael will participate posthumously in this year’s Mr. (and now, Ms.) Hudson’s Bay High School at 7 p.m. May 11 at Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, 3101 Main St. More than a dozen students will strut their stuff at the 26th annual mock beauty pageant, founded in honor of T.J. Moen, a Hudson’s Bay student who died of complications from a rare heart condition. School officials hope that this year, they’ll crest $1 million in total donations to Doernbecher.
Michael’s family is raising money in his honor, and though they don’t want to give too much away — it is a competition, after all — they’ve already raised thousands of dollars.
“We have an army of people who are in this thing and want to help any way they can,” said Michael’s sister, 22-year-old Lauren Little. “It’s just been heartwarming. It sounds cheesy, but it really has, that so many people want to help and keep his memory alive.”
Dr. Katrina Winsnes is a pediatric oncologist at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital specializing in sarcomas. Though she didn’t treat Michael and couldn’t speak specifically on his cancer, she spoke broadly about the disease.
Sarcoma is a broad range of 50 to 70 different cancers that occur in soft, connective tissue or the bones. A handful of types, Winsnes said, are more prevalent in children.
It’s unclear what causes the disease, Winsnes said, though there seems to be some correlation between juvenile sarcoma and teenage growth spurts.
“There’s some thought that puberty and the activation of bone cells may lead to something wrong in that process,” she said.
Doctors usually discover sarcoma when a teenager comes in with an odd mass or pain, she said. The disease is often diagnosed when teenagers who have been injured playing sports report their pain isn’t improving, or that there’s continued swelling wherever they were injured. They may also experience fatigue, unintended weight loss, paleness or persistent fevers.
Lauren Little said before Michael’s diagnosis, they noticed he was getting tired and worn out easily. They chalked it up to puberty.
“We didn’t make the connection until after we figured out he had cancer,” she said.
Surgeons removed two of Michael’s ribs and “totally re-sectioned” his insides, Lauren Little said. He had skin grafts to repair the damage. He received inpatient chemotherapy, spending days at a time in the hospital. A gnarly scar roped around his ribs, but Sharyn Little, Michael’s mom, said he was never ashamed. He used to tell people he’d been bitten by a shark, she said.
“The treatment for sarcoma is terrible,” Winsnes said. “The kids are in the hospital for long periods of time. They have vomiting. They lose their hair. They lose weight. They have surgery or radiation or both. Some kids have amputations. These kids go through a lot.”
Family, friends and teachers remember Michael as an exceptionally bright and active kid, whose smile lit up the room even in the throes of treatment. He loved school, where he performed as a percussionist in the band. He played defense and keeper on his soccer team. He made friends across campus, and hundreds of people attended his memorial service at the high school.
“When he entered a room, he filled it with his energy,” said Tami Perkins, Michael’s Advanced Placement United States History teacher.
Though he’d be absent from class for long periods, he never wanted special treatment, Perkins said. He just wanted to be a normal kid, doing normal class work.
“You wouldn’t have known he was sick,” she said.
But Lauren Little recalled how, throughout his battle with cancer, Michael felt guilty. He was focused on graduating so he could pursue a degree in social work; he wanted to work as a pediatric oncology social worker. He couldn’t wait to participate in Mr. and Ms. Hudson’s Bay High School, so he could raise money for the hospital in which he’d spent so much of his formative years.
“‘I just want to give back so bad,'” Lauren Little recalled her brother saying, to which she responded, “‘Dude, you got to get better.'”
Sharyn Little pointed to the low number of research dollars allocated toward childhood cancer. Only 4 percent of federal government cancer research funding goes to study pediatric cancer, according to the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation. Raising money in Michael’s name is “the least we can do,” Sharyn Little said.
And, she said, “it’s been therapeutic.”
Added her daughter: “It’s something we can do for him, even though he’s not here.”
