After snub, teen graduates cancer-free
It was hard enough when he was diagnosed with leukemia in June 2014 and went through radiation, chemotherapy, a bone-marrow transplant and eight months of isolation.
Stephen Dwyer said his first sense of relief came when he was healthy enough to go back to school for his senior year. The second, a month later, came when he began swimming again.
But then there was another blow. Dwyer was the studentbody president for the Class of 2016 at Dobson High School in Mesa, Ariz., when school officials refused to let him participate in graduation in May. Dwyer was 2.5 credits short of graduation requirements.
Now, six months later after finishing an extra semester, he’s finally graduated and closing the door on the most challenging 2 ½ years of his life.
“Last semester was very difficult,” Dwyer said Tuesday morning before an appointment at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. “It’s been nice to feel like that chapter’s over.”
When Dwyer returned to school in August 2015, he was on the varsity swim team, a member of the National Honor Society, and earning a 4.2 GPA his first semester back. He added an “A-hour” class before first period to help catch up, but it wasn’t enough.
In May, district officials allowed Dwyer only to usher his classmates onto the football field and then watch from the stands. The incident drew national outrage and debate on his behalf.
Dwyer said being left out of graduation felt like medical isolation all over again, leaving him alone to watch the fun through social media.
“I still have a lot of anger,” said his mother, Trish Dwyer. “I’ve watched just these awful things happen to him and how he fought and fought and fought, and to have some adults make a decision to isolate him again, it’s pretty hard, as a mom, to take.”
To replace the graduation ceremony he lost, family and friends gathered for a small celebration Friday. Arizona Diamondbacks player Paul Goldschmidt spoke at the ceremony.
Dwyer’s bone-marrow donor, James Doyle, flew in from Wisconsin to meet him for the first time.
“It was really cool ... it felt like we all knew him,” Dwyer said.
Now, he and his family are waiting to hear on a district committee’s report at the end of the month that could change school policy to allow students like him to participate in graduation.
Trish Dwyer said, “We can’t change what happened, but I don’t want it to happen to anyone else.”