Teen Who Ran Away from Home 20 Years Ago to Avoid Chemo is Still Cancer Free
Best, now 34, fled in 1994 after he began chemo treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Headed for California, he stayed in Houston with skateboard friends. Within weeks he learned that his flight had become a media sensation.
He came home, found alternative treatment from Canada, and graduated from Silver Lake Regional High. He mostly stayed out of the spotlight until he supported a Minnesota boy who had Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
He works at Whole Foods and lives in Newton with his toddler-aged son and the boy’s mother, Maya Chaprut. Best’s adoptive parents, Bill and Sue Best, now live in Bridgewater.
18 years after fleeing treatment, Billy Best is cancer free!
On a warm, sunny day, Billy Best walked his toddler son, Max, down the street to visit neighbors. As he rode the boy on his shoulders on the way back home, he was the picture of a happy, healthy life.
Best’s life was neither healthy nor happy for a few weeks in 1994. At 16 he was thrust into the media spotlight when he ran away from his adoptive Norwell family to avoid chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
He meant to take a bus all the way to California, where his family lived for a while, but he ended up in Houston, hanging out with other skateboarders. He didn’t know the sensation he’d created until a buddy’s father saw a story about him on the network TV show “A Current Affair.”
By the time he returned home, the Norwell teenager had become a symbol of the rights of young cancer patients to choose their form of treatment. His family was getting 100 phone calls a day from “Good Morning America” and other national media......Source: http://organichealth.co/teen-who-ran-away-from-home-20-years-ago-to-avoid-chemo-is-still-cancer-free/
http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/pharmacologicalandbiologicaltreatment/714-x
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