CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) — A Daniel Island family has a special reason for helping make sure families at MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital feel a little less alone this Christmas.
The Bearden family has called Daniel Island home for more than a decade. In October 2023, their lives were upended when their son, Will, was diagnosed with aggressive cancer. What followed was nearly a year inside the hospital, including 263 nights that turned patient rooms into something resembling home.
Treatment dictated everything. Every round of chemotherapy was inpatient. More than a month was spent in the ICU. Milestones most families expect came and went inside hospital walls.
“He spent his senior year in the hospital,” Will’s mother, Jodi Bearden, said. “He spent his freshman year, what could have should have been his freshman year of college, in the hospital. Just watching him hurt and be incredibly helpless as a mom, that’s one hard thing.”…