The last time Caitlin Timmins sat in the stands of a baseball game, she was cancer-free. Since then, the 16-year-old has faced three different types of cancer — a battle she continues to fight.“I am overjoyed that I’m actually at this game right now,” Timmins said Sunday, speaking outside the stadium where she was invited to attend a Blue Jays game with her family. Major League Baseball is the founding donor of Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C), says co-founder Kathleen Lobb. To celebrate 10 years of the organization’s impact on cancer research, Timmins — a patient in a clinical trial funded by the charity — was invited to Sunday’s game and to watch Dr. Peter Dirks throw out the first pitch.Timmins, a Woodstock resident, has been fighting cancer since she was nine.Shortly after her first visit to a baseball game, she was diagnosed with colon cancer. Over the years it spread into her lymph nodes and then to her cervix, as she faced treatment after treatment. Cancer runs in her family — she said she’s seen aunts, cousins and grandparents fall victim to it. “I had watched cancer kill a majority of my family. So I thought, oh, I was going to end up with them.”Timmins said the clinical trial that SU2C helped fund was the “last option” she had for treatment during her third cancer diagnosis. “It was really scary, honestly,” she said, admitting her misgivings about going into it. “But after the first three months when I started to see results, my tumour had shrunk. (Then I) felt grateful that I had started this trial and that it had been funded for me to do.”Also at the game was her doctor, Daniel Morgenstern. He works at the Hospital for Sick Children, co-leading an SU2C team on hyper-mutant pediatric cancer research. Morgenstern said Timmins has been “amazingly patient” during her visits every two weeks for treatment or checkups as part of the trial.“ ...
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