By Emma Bouthillette 

Staff Writer

A 4-year-old cancer survivor has inspired “Miles for Max,’” an Aug. 29 bicycle ride to raise money for pediatric cancer research at Boston Children’s Hospital/Dana Farber Cancer Center.

Kennebunk residents Jim and Janet Bither have planned the ride to raise money in honor of their grandson, Max Palmer. The ride will include 10-, 20- and 40-mile segments. 

Today Max Palmer runs laps around his grandparents’ home – climbing on furniture, chomping on Smarties and looking for his toy taxi.

He was just as active when he was 18 months old and suddenly came down with fatigue, fever and wheezing, says his mother, Carrie Palmer. She and her husband, Jeff, took Max to his pediatrician, only to be sent to the oncology department at Boston Children’s Hospital. 

Max was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, Carrie Palmer said.  A cancerous tumor the size of a football encased every organ in his abdomen, compressed his aorta and vena cava and compromised the blood supply to the rest of his body. 

“When Max was diagnosed, the success rate was low. We’ve been very fortunate thus far,” Carrie Palmer said. “He was diagnosed with ‘high risk,’ which required the most aggressive treatment and the most toxic.”

Max’s treatment included four surgeries to insert a central line in his chest for five rounds of the highest dose of chemotherapy allowed for children and blood transfusions, Carrie Palmer said.

After shrinking the tumor with chemotherapy, Max endured a 14-hour surgery to remove the majority of the tumor followed by seven rounds of local radiation to the tumor bed, she said. 

Max received a stem-cell transplant with chemotherapy in April 2007, and a second stem-cell transplant in June 2007.

In the year after his diagnosis, Carrie Palmer said the family spent 250 nights in the hospital, 120 of which were in the Intensive Care Unit.

As of February, she said he has completed treatment and is monitored every 12 weeks with scans and MRIs to ensure the cancerous tumor has not returned.

“He’s doing pretty well,” Carrie Palmer said. “Luckily he doesn’t remember. I’m glad to shield him from some of that.”

The family, which relocated to Massachusetts just before Max’s diagnosis, still considers Kennebunk their home, and spent the holiday weekend with Carrie Palmer’s parents, Jim and Janet Bither.

She said they wanted to give something back to the hospital, and members of the Kennebunk community really wanted to help. 

“It’s a big community effort,” Carrie Palmer said. “We’re hoping to raise in the area of $25,000. That amount would fund a researcher for another year.”

With contributions to help set up the ride, Carrie Palmer said 100 percent of money raised by cyclists will be donated to the hospital’s research fund. 

“There’s not a lot of money out there and there’s not incentive because it’s not as common,” Carrie Bither said. “The chemo Max got was designed for an adult, not a child.”

Carrie Palmer said approximately 500 children are diagnosed with neuroblastoma a year, which has the lowest survival rate of any childhood cancer. 

Doctors will say Max is in remission after three years of treatment and cured after five years, but she said if the cancer recurs there is currently no known treatment. 

“We’re constantly waiting to see nothing new has grown back,” Carrie Palmer saids. 

“Miles for Max” is scheduled to start at 9 a.m., Aug. 29, at the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust on Gravelly Brook Road.

Registration is $25. To register, visit www.milesformax.com.

Staff writer Emma Bouthillette can be reached at 282-4337 ext. 237.