Positivity: It’s no illusion that magic saved his life
From Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey:
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Magic is Chad Juros’ life. It is also, he believes, something of a lifesaver.
“I definitely think magic has healing powers,” he says.
If anyone should know, it’s the 19-year-old Egg Harbor Township resident who has experienced first-hand just how powerful learning and performing magic can be.
Juros developed leukemia when he was 3; at age 6, he appeared to be cured. A year later, however, the cancer returned, which led to him spending the following 17 months as a resident patient at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“My husband (Don) came to me and said, “Chad’s going to die and I have nothing to share with him like I share tennis with (Chad’s older-by-two-years sister) Faith,’ ” recalls Juros’ mother, Penny, a special-education para-professional for the Egg Harbor Township school district.
“He asked, “What can I share that’s special with Chad at his bedside that will link us like tennis did with Faith? I know! I’ll teach him magic.’ ”
At that point, it didn’t look as if anything would help Juros. “The doctors told me he was the sickest kid in the hospital at that time,” says Penny.
Juros’ trials and tribulations during that time are almost impossible to fathom. The insidious disease — and the chemotherapy that was prescribed to fight it — resulted in, among other things, sepsis, kidney failure, cardiac arrest (twice) and multiple comas. But the youngster literally had a card up his sleeve.
“Magic took so much concentration that I didn’t know what was going on around me,” he says. “It made me feel better about what was going on around me. It kept me focused. I wasn’t falling apart and a mess.
“If I was going into surgery, I’d think, “At least I’ll do card tricks afterward.’
“And yeah, the pain went away when I did magic.”
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