The Cooper Fund exists to give kids diagnosed with deadly brain tumors the treatment options Cooper Deming never had.
Cooper was a baseball player, a loyal friend, a devoted big brother, and a kid who loved life.
In June 2016, when he was 12, he started seeing double during a soccer game. It seemed so solvable. One eye doctor prescribed exercises. Another said he needed glasses. Then surgery came up, which was scary but manageable. Then the unthinkable: an MRI found a tumor in his brainstem.
Cooper went through 30 rounds of radiation, and through that winter the tumor shrank. By spring, it was growing again. Cooper died on May 9, 2017, eleven months after the double vision started.
Cooper didn’t get to play high school baseball. He didn’t get his first kiss or learn to drive. For Cooper, we fight for every kid who receives this horrible diagnosis.
A note from Cooper’s mom, Amy:
One minute you’re worrying about little things, like no time to cook dinner or yet another carpool.
The next minute, you’re wondering how to put on a brave face for your son, knowing the tumor in his brain is stealing everything from him, day by day, minute by minute – first his vision, then his balance and ability to walk, then his ability to swallow, to speak, even to shed a tear or move at all, and ultimately, to breathe.
No child, no family, should have to endure this.
No Cure. Yet.
Diffuse Midline Glioma (DMG), often called DIPG, is a fast-growing brain tumor that strikes children. It grows in the brainstem, which controls breathing, heartbeat and balance, so it can’t be removed with surgery. Radiation buys a few months, but there is no cure, and most children die within a year of diagnosis.
Since the 1950s, almost every deadly childhood cancer has seen major gains in survival, but DMG has not. Neil Armstrong’s daughter died of the same tumor in 1962, and more than half a century later, Cooper received the same treatment she did.
That picture is finally changing. Brainstem biopsies are now safer and more widely accepted, which lets researchers study tumor tissue and identify the specific genetic mutations driving it. That has opened the door to targeted, personalized treatments that weren’t possible when Cooper was sick. A new generation of clinical trials is testing immunotherapies, targeted drugs and combination approaches with unprecedented precision.
Cooper’s tumor was donated to the Morgan Adams Foundation Pediatric Brain Tumor Research Program at Children’s Hospital Colorado / the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus to further research into DMG and new treatments for pediatric cancer.
Where Your Gift Goes
The Cooper Fund supports research into new treatments for DMG, so the next child diagnosed has options Cooper never had. Please support this important research in honor and loving memory of Cooper:
