Lurie Children's patient mom, Ellie, has a message for Extra Life Gamers

On November 3rd, hundreds of gamers in and around Chicago will game, stream, and fundraise for the hospital through Extra Life. Last year, Extra Life raised over $175,000 for the hospital, one dollar, one participant, and one game at a time. Patient mom Ellie has a message for Extra Life gamers as they gear up for Game Day:

Sometimes life is like a video game.

Things change suddenly and your mortality is in your face as you fight like you’ve never fought before.

That’s how things began on a July morning in 2012 for us. It happened before the sun rose. We discovered Chase having a seizure, and were informed by an emergency room doctor that there was “a large mass” on his brain.

Within hours of those words, Chase was on an ambulance transport to Lurie Children’s Hospital. We left the rest of our children behind as we held tight to two-year-old Chase and began a fast and controlled free-fall into significant brain surgery and treatment options. They gave him less than a 20% chance and most agree that the number was generous. His cancer had spread before it was discovered, the cure rate even for non-spread was low, and the treatment was so epic and difficult that survival would take a miracle.

But survive it he did.

He’s gone rounds and years up against chemotherapies, surgeries, radiation, transfusions, complications, and so many other aspects that at times, he seems almost super human to the rest of us as we watch him.

He struggles, but he lives and that is because Lurie Children’s kept fighting for him. Every day, they fight for the kids, slay all the cancer dragons and don’t ever accept defeat.

And so now, Chase is eight, and if he holds his iPad close to his face with his glasses on tight, he can dominate a game of Roblox because others fought for him and saw his life as something worth living and living well.

When you fundraise for the hospital through Extra Life, you aren’t just helping the kids, you are granting life like the most epic super hero – taking your role on the screen into the three dimensional world – and we love you for it.

From Chase and all of us – Thank you.

-Ellie, Chase’s Mom

What are you doing to fight for kids like Chase? Sign up for Extra Life to game for Lurie Children’s at Extra-Life.org