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The York County Youth
Commission and the Board of Supervisors established the Outstanding
Youth of the Year Awards Program to recognize the accomplishments
and achievements of York County’s youth.
Meaghan Herrity was nominated and has been chosen by
the Selection Committee to receive the 2008 Outstanding Youth of the
Year Award for Courage, a quality widely recognized in this amazing
young woman.
In April 2006, when, as a very athletic 14 year-old
ninth grader at Grafton High School Meaghan began to experience body
pains after a field hockey tournament which were soon accompanied by
a general fatigue and weakness in her legs. One morning she awoke
and suddenly collapsed in panic, unable to move her legs at all.
After a local emergency room MRI revealed a spinal tumor, Meaghan
was transported to Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters (CHKD)
where the tumor was removed. Meaghan then spent 10 days in ICU,
delirious and in excruciating pain, after which she was informed
that the tumor was a grade IV glioblastoma multiforme, a cancerous
brain tumor that had settled in her central nervous system, and that
two more spinal tumors had been found.
Meaghan spent two more weeks in the oncology unit. Hungry and
fearful to fall asleep at night, Meaghan was flown to the Dana
Farber Cancer Institute’s program at Children’s Hospital Boston
where she endured an intensive three month long program that
included daily radiation treatments at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
as well as daily physical and occupational therapy sessions at
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and 44 straight days of
chemotherapy, all of which collectively made her ill and in
wrenching pain throughout the day and unable to sleep at night.
According
to her nominator Don Samuels, Meaghan “has shown an amazing amount
of courage, optimism, and strength throughout her ordeal,” and that
“those who know Meaghan have been inspired by her courage and feel
blessed to be in her life,". A fact echoed by her former J.V.
Field Hockey Coach, Mr. Phil Sheldon, who remembers her “always
playing with all her being and ability, always giving 110% effort,
and that without trying to, she served as a role model for her peers
to follow her example and spirit,” which he says is the way she has
responded to her disease, “handling it with the same tenacity she
demonstrated on the field hockey field, and once again, without
necessarily trying to, greatly inspiring others who face
difficulties of whatever kind in their own lives".
Meaghan
demonstrates this tenacity in her schoolwork, where in spite of her
many health-related demands and appointments, she has achieved an
astounding 3.8 grade point average, has also somehow found the time
to be on the Yearbook staff, has started a pediatric cancer charity
drive at Grafton to help young patients endure their treatments, and
has earned the profound respect of her peers who elected her to
represent the Junior Class as their Homecoming Princess this year!
Meaghan Herrity is the
most worthy recipient of the Outstanding Youth Award for Courage.
She is extended the admiration and heartfelt appreciation of the
Board of Supervisors for her tremendous inspiration and example to
us all, that the Board’s prayers and best wishes go with her for
good health and a continued life of giving to others, and that she
know that this world is a better place because she has touched us
through her triumphant living.
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Meaghan
Herrity