Cancer survivor is again living the life of a teenager
Source: heraldnet.com Author: Julie Muhlstein Mark Edmondson doesn't ask "Why me?" The 18-year-old has endured more pain than most people suffer in a long lifetime. "I'm still alive," the Everett High School senior said Monday. "I appreciate a lot of things now most teenagers don't." Two years ago today, when Edmondson was featured in this column, he'd just been diagnosed with an aggressive type of mouth cancer. He'd survived grueling surgery. Still ahead were months of chemotherapy and radiation. At 16, as friends were staring to drive and enjoying high school, his future looked bleak. With every reason for self-pity, he never let himself sink. "Never," said his mother, Stephanie Edmondson. "There's no complaining, no whining, no 'Why me?' He's always been like that. He has kind of an old soul. I'm very proud of him," she said. She is also thankful beyond words. Today, Mark Edmondson is strong and fit. He missed a year of school, but is on track for June graduation. He works out at the YMCA and has two jobs. He looks forward to Thanksgiving with his mother, younger brother John, grandmother Celeste Berdahl and extended family. Just a year ago, Mark had a feeding tube. At 5 feet, 10 inches tall, his mother said, he weighed 104 pounds. He finished radiation treatments at Seattle's Swedish Medical Center in the spring of 2007. Since then, scans and biopsies have shown that he's cancer-free. But last fall he suffered an intestinal infection. "He did not look like [...]