Nearly a decade ago, John Rivera turned the worst crisis a parent can face — the terminal cancer diagnosis of his young son — into a lifelong quest to help save other children’s lives.
In 2007, Rivera’s 4-year-old son, Cristian, was diagnosed with a very rare form of brain cancer, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG.
An extremely rare but devastating disease, DIPG affects less than 300 kids each year but has an extremely high mortality rate — less than 1% live five years after being diagnosed.
Cristian died in 2009 at 6, but his brave, two-year battle with the disease spurred Rivera to dedicate his own life to raising money and awareness to fight DIPG.
“It’s still very difficult,” Rivera said about losing his son. “But I have to be one of the people — one of the tools — that helps find a cure.”
Rivera, 52, a music producer and promoter known in the industry as “Gungie,” in 2009 created the Cristian Rivera Foundation, a nonprofit that donates all monies raised to hospitals and foundations researching cures for DIPG.
On Wednesday, the foundation will host its eighth annual celebrity fund-raising gala at the Broad Street Ballroom in Manhattan.
The event, hosted by NBC’s Darlene Rodriguez, will honor Dr. Mark Souweidane, director of the Weill Cornell Pediatric Brain and Spine Center and the physician behind a new treatment trial partly funded by the foundation and its supporters.
“When my son was diagnosed, there was no hope for a cure and very little information,” Rivera said. “Now almost 10 years later, there has been so much progress.”
DIPG tumors are found in the brainstem, making the cancer incredibly difficult to treat with chemotherapy. Dr. Soudweidane’s new trial uses a technique known as convection-enhanced delivery, or CED.
This method treats the tumor by inserting hairline fibers laced with a chemo agent through the difficult-to-penetrate blood-brain barrier and directly into the tumor on the brainstem.
There are still no confirmed survivors of the disease, but Rivera is hopeful that this new trial is a major step towards a cure.
“We’ve been able to treat approximately 31 children,” Rivera said. “Unfortunately, most of them have passed. But there is one little girl that has tolerated the treatment very well. She’s 11, the oldest child I know with the disease.
“It’s wonderful to see the foundation grow every year,” Rivera adds. “Even if I can’t get everyone to donate, I know that I’ve planted a seed of information and spread awareness about a disease that so few people know about.”
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