His ‘gift from God’

Colin Conaty barely got his first chance at life when he was given a second chance. Before he turned 2, Colin was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He now lives as a proud survivor.

The 10-year-old student at St. William the Abbot School in Seaford will be one of two honorees at an upcoming St. Baldrick’s fundraiser. The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a non-profit organization that raises money to find cures for childhood cancers, with participants shaving their heads in return for pledges. An event will be held at Johnny McGorey’s in Massapequa Park on March 6, and Colin will be one of two children there to serve as an inspiration for others.

“If it wasn’t for these money-raising events, I probably wouldn’t be alive right now,” Colin said. “I was so young, and the doctors did such a good job in keeping me from having any problems today.”

When Colin wasn’t feeling well, his parents initially thought it was just the same case of strep throat that had befallen his four older siblings. But when he didn’t get better, his parents took him to the emergency room. His mother, Patricia Conaty, remembers how it “all happened so fast” with a trip to the hospital on a snowy night in 2007, while the Academy Awards were on. Doctors ordered a CT scan, found a tumor and did emergency surgery to relieve pressure on his brain.

Colin was diagnosed with ependymoma, and he was hospitalized from February through May. After surgery and 36 rounds of radiation, the tumor was gone. He has MRIs on his brain every few months, and now must get one every year — tests that will continue for the rest of his life.

“He knows that he has to have the MRI,” his mother said. “For him it was all normal. He was so young.”

“I know how bad the disease could have been,” added Colin, calling his second chance at life “a gift from God.”

Colin does have a shunt in his head, a tube on the outside of his skull that drains excess fluid from his brain. Because of that, he never keeps his hair short, his mother explained, so he will not have his head shaved at the upcoming St. Baldrick’s fundraiser.

Instead, as he has done in years past, he will be picking up the shears and cutting other people’s hair. “It gets a little easier after a while,” he said.