09/02/2026
🎗️ Childhood Cancer Month 🎗️ — Day 2
Dee’s Story:
Malcom Dakota “Dee” Brundidge’s cancer journey began on November 7, 2001, when he was just 18 months old.
Dee was diagnosed with an anaplastic oligodendroglioma, Grade 3, at 18 months old. Dr. Jeffrey Blount at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, performed his craniotomy and removed a tumor about the size of the palm of your hand and approximately an inch and a half deep.
Long story short, Dee underwent more than 2½ years of chemotherapy with Procarbazine, Vincristine, and Lomustine. When he was 5 years old, the cancer came back in the same spot.
He then went through 33 rounds of high-dose whole-brain radiation followed by 3 years of Temodar chemotherapy. He experienced various late effects from the life-saving radiation and chemotherapy over the years. Because he was so young, we didn’t realize until May 2018 just how severe the long-term effects of the whole-brain radiation had been.
Fast-forward to the end of March and beginning of April 2018.
Dee started complaining of terrible headaches. We initially thought they were allergies and treated him at home, but day after day, he continued to have severe pain in his temples that nothing seemed to relieve.
We took him to his local doctor, Dr. Bhagwan Bang, who has always been wonderful to our family. We tried Nasonex and other allergy medications because the pollen was especially bad that time of year.
Dr. Bang decided Dee needed a CT scan after a small, soft lump appeared on his old surgery site, about the size of a dime. Opp’s Mizell Memorial Hospital performed the scan, and the radiologist told us it was nothing more than scar tissue.
We trusted that diagnosis.
But the headaches continued, and the lump grew to about the size of a nickel. We asked Dr. Bang to refer us to Dr. Amanda Day, Dee’s dermatologist in Enterprise, Alabama. She agreed with the CT scan and the radiologist that it appeared to be either a fluid-filled cyst on the outside or scar tissue in the brain.
Again, we never dreamed it could be cancer.
His yearly cancer appointment was coming up in May, so we thought we could wait. Two different doctors had told us it was nothing to worry about.
But Dee was still hurting.
On the night of Mother’s Day in 2018, Dee drove his friend home and began experiencing blurred vision so severe that we had to go pick him up and drive him home.
The next morning, Monday, May 14, 2018, Dee slept late. When he woke up, he looked at me and said:
“Mama, I see 20 fingers.”
Immediately, we went to Dr. Bang’s office. We told them, “Something has to be done today. Now.”
Dr. Bang told us Dee needed to go to Birmingham, but Dee didn’t want to ride in an ambulance. We went home, bathed, packed our things, loaded the car, and headed to Birmingham ourselves.
We arrived just after 7 p.m.
After tests and labs, Dr. Jeffrey Blount—the same neurosurgeon who had performed Dee’s brain surgeries when he was 18 months old and again when he was 5—came in and told us Dee needed emergency brain surgery.
The tumor had grown through his skull, which was causing the lump on his head. It had also grown through the sinus cavity at the top of his head, rerouting blood flow, and was growing along the vagus nerve.
On May 15, 2018, Dee underwent an immediate 9-hour brain surgery.
While recovering and waiting to find out exactly what type of cancer he had, Dee began having extremely high blood pressure. It was so severe that he was placed on two separate blood pressure medications.
It took more than a month for anyone to agree on what type of cancer was in Dee’s brain. UAB sent his pathology to San Francisco and Cleveland, but all three places came back with three different possible diagnoses.
During that short month, the cancer continued to grow—faster and more aggressively. Doctors described it as “angry-looking” and extremely aggressive.
Another brain surgery was considered too dangerous because of where the tumor was growing along the vagus nerve.
So, while we waited for answers, Dee began Ifosfamide and Doxorubicin chemotherapy in an attempt to slow the cancer’s growth.
During his last brain surgery, they had to remove the portion of his skull where the cancer had grown through. They could not replace it, so they closed his scalp without the bone. Eventually, Dee would need a bone graft to cover that soft spot.
His blood pressure continued to stay dangerously high despite being on two medications. Doctors decided to perform an ultrasound of his kidneys because the kidneys play an important role in regulating blood pressure.
Something wasn’t right with the ultrasound, so they immediately ordered a CT scan.
That’s when we were told something we never could have imagined:
Both of Dee’s kidneys were filled with so many tumors they couldn’t count them all.
They told us to imagine a bag of marbles in different sizes.
That’s what his kidneys looked like.
By June 2018, around Father’s Day, Dee underwent a kidney biopsy to remove one of the larger, fluid-filled tumors—about the size of a golf ball—that was in and around his left kidney.
The pathology came back almost immediately.
Renal Cell Carcinoma was filling both of his kidneys.
While we were still waiting to determine exactly what was happening in Dee’s brain, they performed a PET scan and found two spots on his right lung.
By this point, doctors believed Dee had osteosarcoma in his brain.
We refused to believe it.
Bone cancer… in his brain?
But the life-saving whole-brain radiation Dee had received when he was 5 years old was actually believed to be the direct cause of the cancer he developed 13 years later.
We were in shock.
So were his doctors.
We were told that having these two separate cancers in his body at the same time was so incredibly rare that there wasn’t much documented information to guide his treatment.
We had to make a treatment plan as we went.
We tried to fight both cancers at the same time using Doxorubicin, Cisplatin, high-dose Methotrexate, and Everolimus.
Dee became extremely sick and developed several other complications. Eventually, we had to agree that we needed to focus on treating the osteosarcoma in his brain first.
The plan was to finish his brain chemotherapy and then, in February or March 2019, perform surgery on his lung to remove the spots and determine which cancer had spread there.
The spots appeared calcified, which made doctors think they were probably osteosarcoma that had metastasized from his brain. But there was also a possibility they were Renal Cell Carcinoma, since that cancer can spread to the lungs as well.
Through all of this, doctors constantly told us how amazing Dee was.
They called him a miracle.
They told us that, despite having an extremely rare and difficult diagnosis, he was strong, resilient, and absolutely amazing.
And they were right.
Dee never ceased to amaze anyone because his entire life, he defied the odds.
I want to thank God and every single person who stood beside our family throughout Dee’s journey. We are truly blessed to have had so many people love, pray for, and support us.
Malcom “Dee” Brundidge was a hero. 💛
Dee won his battle with cancer on May 23, 2020, at 8:55 p.m.
Our lives changed forever that night.
Dee cared deeply about other people, and he loved sharing his story and helping bring awareness to childhood cancer.
So today, and every day, I will continue to tell his story.
For Dee.
For every child who is fighting.
For every child who has won their battle.
And for every family who has had to hear the words, “Your child has cancer.”
🎗️💛 We will keep fighting for childhood cancer awareness in Dee’s honor.
— Hannah
