After fighting for her life twice, 20-year-old Megan Stuart is using a personal victory as a springboard for giving back to the hospital that saved her. The Minneapolis woman has already faced her share of challenges. Stuart and her twin brother were born eight weeks early. Then, at only 4 months old, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, she said. Years later, just as she was on the verge of achieving her life’s goal in Irish dancing, the COVID pandemic shut down her favorite sport.
Even so, in an on-camera interview with Fox News Digital, Stuart referred to herself a number of times as “lucky.” She was lucky, she said, that Children’s Minnesota, the hospital where she and her brother spent 40 days in the NICU after their premature birth, had the facilities and know-how to treat an infant with stage 3 neuroblastoma. And now she is lucky, she added, that she’s been given a platform to give back to it.
After nearly a decade of attempts and close finishes, Stuart was crowned the world champion in Irish dance last March at the CLRG World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. The CLRG is the world’s largest and oldest Irish dance governing body. Celebrating a victory with a large party with family and friends is customary, but Stuart is marking her championship by raising money for the Cancer Kids Fund at Children’s Minnesota, a charity close to her heart. Stuart told Fox News Digital in an interview, “This is something I’ve been thinking about [doing] for a really long time before I even won — I was like, ‘Wow, I think it would be really great to do something to just give back.”
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She said, “I feel really, really lucky to not only have had Children’s Minnesota in my life, but also to have survived cancer and to have their entire team … contribute to saving my life, and then … to have a great dance community.” Stuart’s mother first noticed something was off with her newborn daughter shortly after the doctors released her baby from the NICU. Stuart recounted to Fox News Digital, “I think it was after a couple of weeks, [my mother] was like, ‘Something’s just not right. Megan’s not quite matching up with John in terms of traditional development. ‘There were some weird illness-like symptoms going on.” Tests for common illnesses such as RSV and flu came back negative. But Stuart’s mother “just kept insisting that something was wrong.” After more rounds of testing, Stuart’s markers indicated that she had stage 3 neuroblastoma, a rare cancer that develops in nerve tissue.
Her doctors were stunned, even re-running the tests to ensure the results were not a fluke. Dr. Susan Sencer, vice president of chief specialty pediatrics at Children’s Minnesota, was Stuart’s oncologist. “I have had the privilege of witnessing some truly remarkable journeys, Megan’s being one of them,” she told Fox News Digital in an interview. After her diagnosis, “Megan faced an incredibly challenging start to life,” Sencer said, noting that “her resilience and determination throughout treatment were extraordinary.”