CHICKASHA, Okla. (KFOR) – Fifteen-year-old Alexus Campbell loves TikTok, and so it’s no surprise that she is sharing her cancer journey with her followers.
“This is a day in life of someone with Stage 3 cancer” she says to the camera as she holds up her outfit for the day. “These are my clothes and my pills. Some days I feel sick and some days I feel great.”
Alexus once sported a full head of thick brown hair, and it should get a chance to regrow next summer. The chemotherapy that caused her hair to fall out was preceded last spring with puzzling, stabbing stomach pains.
Her mother, Alisa Tune recalls, “They thought she had an infection in the kidney, and we did more testing and found out that it was actually cancer.” Justin Tune nods his head, “I was speechless. I had no words for it, couldn’t believe it.”
The diagnosis was stunning to this busy family with five children. It also took doctors off guard. Wilm’s tumor is a type of kidney cancer rarely seen in children beyond the age of six.
Justin Tune recalls, “When they came in and told us she had cancer, they actually put her in surgery the next day and took the kidney completely out.”
That happened in May 2021, and now OU’s Children’s Hospital and Jimmy Everest Cancer Center are the center of Alexus’ life.
She has weekly treatments or appointments which include chemo and radiation. Her best friend, Lindsey, is often by her side. Alexus says, “She’s really helped. We talk all about how it feels and how we’re so blessed to still be alive.”
Alexus’s mom says, “Everyone at Jimmy Everest Cancer Center has been very helpful. The nurses are amazing. Alexus has been very brave through the whole process.”
Alexus says weakness and exhaustion is often along for the ride. She uses a walker at times and she sleeps a lot.
“I just went home and slept for 10 to 15 hours. I really did,” she says during a Tiktok recording.
This big family is now treasuring the time Alexus is home, as they play games of bingo and corn-hole. “We’re hanging together as a family and that’s the main part” says Justin Tune. Alexus agrees, “I definitely think it’s brought us closer. I’m just taking it day by day.”
This teenager’s life is interrupted, but she has the promise of a full recovery for a full life ahead.
If you’d like to help kids like Alexus, considering donating to JECFriends.org.
