MATTHEW NOYES
25 YEARS OLD
1983 - 2008

Diagnosis: Anaplastic Astrocytoma (brain tumor)
Diagnosed June 2002

 

Matt’s Story:
Matt, a busy college freshman, was attending Lawrence University in Wisconsin in June of 2002. During his finals, he noticed that he had blurred vision and a thumping sound in his ears. He called his mother, a former pediatric cancer nurse, and she knew immediately that something terrible was wrong. When home from school the next day, Matt went to his optometrist, who noticed swelling behind both of Matt’s eyes. Matt’s mother immediately contacted a friend and neurosurgeon who ordered an MRI of Matt’s brain. In the Emergency Room soon after his MRI, Matt and his parents got the devastating news… a brain tumor.

How could this happen to a healthy, young college student?

The next day Matt had brain surgery and miraculously, his surgeon only took 2 and ½ hours instead of the predicted 6 hours. The neurosurgeon was pleased that he was able to remove the entire visible tumor present in the left side of Matt’s brain. It only took 2 days before Matt was ready to come home. He was feeling positive and strong.

Matt’s mother knew that treating a brain tumor is very difficult, and that the pediatric oncology community had not yet made the progress with brain tumors that had been made with other types of cancer tumors. As a result, she contacted a colleague and friend, a pediatric pathologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He advised her to bring Matt to St. Jude because doctors and researchers see more brain tumors than anywhere else in the country. Within 4 days of his surgery, Matt and his family were off to St. Jude in Memphis, TN.

At St. Jude:

Matt had another setback upon arriving at St. Jude. His doctor informed him that he had an unusual spot in the back of his head. It required a surgical biopsy, but the verdict was good- scar tissue and not tumor. With this good news, Matt was able to begin his 8- week course of radiation. Matt continued to have two more relapses and despite additional chemotherapy, his lost his battle to cancer on April 27th, 2008. Throughout his battle, Matt never let his cancer define his life and lived each day to the fullest. His spirit, courage and strength have inspired so many individuals.

Matt and his parents are forever grateful to St. Jude. Bill and Nancy Noyes have established a not-for-profit foundation, The Noyes Brain Tumor Foundation to continue to help Dr. Gajjar, at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, develop new treatment protocols for malignant brain tumors. It is through our foundation that we hope to find better treatments and potential cures for a variety of brain tumors.

There were over 500 people as his memorial service in May 2008 and his family and friends donated over $10,000 in his name; a real tribute to how many lives that Matt touched.