19 year old, Hayden Ruffner is making an effort to put others before himself by opening a ice cream and coffee shop called Hayden’s Corner to raise money and awareness for Osteosarcoma.
Ruffner suffers from Osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer that has little to none resources available for patients. Ruffner told me there is currently no medicine for his disease.
“There really hasn’t been anything new, I’m currently on pancreatic medicine, it’s not even for bone cancer," Hayden explained. "So with that, I think it’s very important to just spread the word that this is something serious that needs to be addressed.”
Ruffner says having little resources doesn’t just affect him, but his family as well.
“My mom stopped working once I started having cancer so she couldn’t support my four siblings while I was up there, so I think more help for families is something that’s really important.”
Nicole Domingue, Hayden’s mother told me because of lack of resources, it took 5 months for doctors to diagnose her son with Osteosarcoma. She feels if more research was available it could have made a difference in not only her son’s life but other children as well.
“ It makes me angry really, when we started this out there were other families going through the same thing with Hayden at the same time," Domingue said. "Now several of those young children are dead, it makes you angry... I want to see a difference.”
Domingue says everyday is fearful for her but she hopes opening Hayden’s Corner will give other families hope.
“I live in daily fear of losing my son, and we built this corner so that others hopefully will be able to not feel the same situation we are going through now.” Domingue said.
Hayden's Corner is located on 516 North Parkerson Ave, and will have it's grand opening July 20th from 7 a.m to 7 p.m.
For ways to donate you can visit Hayden's Corner on Facebook or send donations to @simonedogie18 on vemo.
