Health
Cancer survivor and world-champion Irish dancer raises money for hospital that saved her life
After fighting for her life twice, Megan Stuart, 20, is using a personal victory as a springboard for giving back to the hospital that saved her.
The Minneapolis woman has already faced her share of challenges.
Stuart and her twin brother were born eight weeks early. Then, at just 4 months old, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, she said.
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Years later, just as she was on the verge of achieving her life’s goal in Irish dancing, the COVID pandemic shut down her favorite sport.
Even so, in an on-camera interview with Fox News Digital, Stuart referred to herself a number of times as “lucky.” (See the video at the top of this article.)
Megan Stuart, 20, of Minneapolis, was recently crowned world champion at the 2024 CLRG World Championships of Irish dance, right. She’s using her win to raise money for the cancer charity that helped her as an infant, left. (Courtesy Megan Stuart/Shamrock Photography)
She was lucky, she said, that Children’s Minnesota — the hospital where she and her brother spent 40 days in the NICU after their premature birth — had the facilities and know-how to treat an infant with stage 3 neuroblastoma.
And now she is lucky, she added, that she’s been given a platform to give back to it.
After nearly a decade of attempts and close finishes, Stuart was crowned the world champion in Irish dance last March at the CLRG World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. The CLRG is the world’s largest and oldest Irish dance governing body.
“I think it would be really great to do something to just give back.”
Celebrating a victory with a large party with family and friends is customary, but Stuart is marking her championship by raising money for the Cancer Kids Fund at Children’s Minnesota, a charity close to her heart.
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“This is something I’ve been thinking about [doing] for a really long time, before I even won — I was like, ‘Wow, I think it would be really great to do something to just give back,’” Stuart told Fox News Digital in an on-camera interview.
“I feel really, really lucky to not only have had Children’s Minnesota in my life, but also to have survived cancer and to have their entire team … contribute to saving my life, and then … to have a great dance community,” she said.
Fighting for her life
Stuart’s mother first noticed something was off with her newborn daughter shortly after the doctors released her baby from the NICU.
“I think it was after a couple of weeks, [my mother] was like, ‘Something’s just not right. Megan’s not quite matching up with John in terms of traditional development,’” Stuart recounted to Fox News Digital. “There were some weird illness-like symptoms going on.”
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Tests for common illnesses such as RSV and flu came back negative. But Stuart’s mother “just kept insisting that something was wrong.”
After more rounds of testing, Stuart’s markers indicated that she had stage 3 neuroblastoma, a rare cancer that develops in nerve tissue.
Her doctors were stunned, even re-running the tests to ensure the results were not a fluke.
Stuart and her twin brother spent 40 days in the NICU at Children’s Minnesota after they were born prematurely. The Stuart family then found themselves back at the same hospital after her cancer diagnosis. (Children’s Minnesota)
Dr. Susan Sencer, vice president of chief specialty pediatrics at Children’s Minnesota, was Stuart’s oncologist.
“I have had the privilege of witnessing some truly remarkable journeys, Megan’s being one of them,” she told Fox News Digital in an interview.
After her diagnosis, “Megan faced an incredibly challenging start to life,” Sencer said, noting that “her resilience and determination throughout treatment were extraordinary.”
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The medical team faced unique challenges in treating Stuart, who was extremely small due to her premature birth.
While Stuart said the harsh chemotherapy drugs “majorly affected” her development, she has not had any significant long-term health impacts, which she called “unbelievable.”
“They always look for major heart defects, and [chemotherapy] can really affect your hearing, too,” she said, which, for an Irish dancer, would prove disastrous.
Stuart, shown in both images above, was diagnosed with stage 3 neuroblastoma before she was 5 months old. The chemotherapy she received as an infant does not appear to have had any lasting health effects. (Courtesy Megan Stuart/Shamrock Photography)
For two years after the diagnosis, the Stuarts “basically lived” at Children’s Minnesota, she said, during which time they “benefited greatly” from the Cancer Kids Fund.
The fund provides child care for patients’ siblings, plus arts and crafts programs and other services outside the medical setting.
With her fundraiser, Stuart is aiming to help other families facing situations similar to what she went through years ago.
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Stuart regards her championship win as an opportunity to tie together two key communities in her life, cancer survival and Irish dance.
‘Dead set on winning’
Stuart began taking Irish dance classes at Corda Mór Irish Dance in Edina, Minnesota, at age 4, following in her older sister’s footsteps. (In Gaelic, “Corda Mór” means “great heart.”)
“In typical little sister fashion, I just wanted to be like her,” she told Fox News Digital. “I thought she was the best dancer I’d ever seen.”
At the time she laced up her first pair of dance shoes, Stuart had just been declared cancer-free, something she said was a “cool coincidence.”
Megan Stuart, left, started dancing because she wanted to be like her older sister, Molly Stuart, right. She won her first regional title at the age of 10. (Courtesy Megan Stuart)
Right away, she set a goal to win a world title.
“As soon as I knew … what the world championships were, I was dead set on winning,” she said. “Not because I was like, ‘Oh, I need to win,’ but I just thought how cool it would be.”
While Stuart quickly experienced success at the regional level, winning her first local championship in 2014 at age 10, she was a long way from winning a world title.
Right away, she set a goal to win a world title.
In 2020, Stuart finally won a major international competition – the All-Ireland Championships – and seemed well on her way to achieving the goal she’d set as a child.
Then, just weeks later, the 2020 world championships were canceled due to the COVID pandemic. The 2021 world championships were called off as well.
Undeterred, Stuart kept training — and in 2022, she placed second at the world championships. While she was thrilled with the outcome, she believed she had the potential to win.
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In 2023, Stuart again placed second at the world championships.
“Being so close to the top so many times, it really pushed me over the edge to my very best level,” she said.
Instead of focusing on winning, she centered her training on “finding reason within dancing” and performing for the love of it.
On March 29, 2024, Stuart’s dream became a reality. As the announcer at the world championships announced the second-place dancer – it was not Stuart – she jumped to her feet, screaming.
Fauna Gille, co-owner of Corda Mór Irish Dance, told Fox News Digital it was clear from the beginning that Stuart was a champion in the making.
“To win Worlds became Megan’s dream, but it’s the journey to get there that has given us the memories of a lifetime,” Gille said in an email.
“Megan has shown us what ‘great heart’ means throughout this journey, through her kind spirit, perseverance, passion for her craft, and steady and strong nature through the many ups and downs of both Irish dancing and life,” she said.
Stuart, said Gille, “is a role model for her peers, and an inspiration to her teachers and so many others.”
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Sencer, Stuart’s oncologist, agreed with that.
“I’m not surprised she’s now a world champion dancer,” she said. “Her transformation from a tiny patient battling cancer to a celebrated dancer on the global stage is a testament to her incredible strength, perseverance and passion for life.”
“Her transformation from a tiny patient battling cancer to a celebrated dancer on the global stage is a testament to her incredible strength, perseverance and passion for life,” Dr. Susan Sencer, Stuart’s oncologist, told Fox News Digital. (Children’s Minnesota)
Stuart’s triumph, said Sencer, is “a powerful reminder that with courage and support, it is possible to overcome even the most daunting obstacles and achieve greatness.”
The doctor added, “Megan’s journey inspires hope and proves that life after cancer can be full of vibrant possibilities.”
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For her part, Stuart said, “Standing on the podium during that award ceremony, I was like, ‘Wow, this is so meaningful.’”
She went on, “My life is truly incredible, and I just feel – there’s no better word for it – so incredibly lucky.”
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A 78-year-old Oklahoma woman who was diagnosed with polio as a child and was the last American to rely on an iron lung to live has died.
Martha Lillard found out she had the once-feared disease when she was 5 years old, which left her paralyzed from the neck down, and required her to use the machine to help her breathe while she slept.
Lillard contracted COVID-19 twice during the pandemic, which left her in the machine nearly 24 hours a day.
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“They told her she wasn’t supposed to live past 20 years old,” her younger sister, Cindy McVey, told The Associated Press on Friday. “She had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of her life.”
Despite having polio, Lillard was able to go to school two hours a day as a child, and she had tutors the rest of the time. She also used an intercom phone system that allowed her to interact with her teachers and classmates from home.
Martha Lillard rests in her iron lung in Shawnee, Oklahoma. (Cindy McVey/AP Photo, File)
Lillard was even able to take road trips as a child because of a custom trailer that could accommodate the iron lung and her father making sure their hotels had wide enough doors for the machine.
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An iron lung is a negative-pressure ventilator that would help a patient with paralyzed lung muscles breathe.
A row of iron lungs is seen inside in a Los Angeles hospital in 1950. (Bettmann Archive)
The disease once caused thousands of cases of paralysis in children during outbreaks each year in the first part of the 20th century before a vaccine became available in 1955.
By 1979, polio was considered eliminated in the U.S.
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Later, Lillard was able to regain the use of her left arm and legs through therapy and was even able to drive for a time.
She lived independently for many years, even getting married earlier this year to a man from Egypt she corresponded with for two decades after he was able to obtain a visa.
A nurse prepares children for a polio vaccine shot as part of a citywide vaccine test on elementary school students. (Bettmann Archive)
“They were really soul mates,” McVey said. “He’s extremely brokenhearted.”
Lillard, who wrote poetry and volunteered with the Humane Society, according to her sister, had just 25% lung capacity before she was diagnosed with COVID.
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She died of chronic pulmonary failure and post-polio syndrome, according to her death certificate.
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Her sister added that it was related to the effects of long-haul COVID.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
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Reducing your risk of cancer death may be as simple as taking brief breaks for physical activity throughout the day, according to a new observational study.
The study, led by researchers from the University of Glasgow studying the association between cancer and prolonged sedentary behavior, found that participants who regularly interrupted prolonged sitting with physical activity had a lower risk of cancer death.
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“This study adds to growing evidence that prolonged sedentary behavior is an independent health risk,” Dr. Georgia Spear, chief of breast imaging at Northwestern Medicine, told Fox News Digital.
“While it does not prove that sitting causes cancer, it suggests that long, uninterrupted periods of sitting are associated with a higher risk of cancer mortality,” Spear explained. “The findings reinforce existing public-health recommendations that regular movement throughout the day is an important component of cancer prevention.”
Prolonged sedentary periods are associated with increased risk of cancer death, researchers observed. (iStock)
The researchers monitored 91,292 volunteer participants in the U.K. who wore movement-tracking devices on their wrists for seven days to track their sedentary habits. The scientists followed the volunteers’ health outcomes over the course of about 12 years.
The researchers defined prolonged sedentary behavior as any bout that lasted “at least 30 minutes and during which at least 90% of the time was sedentary.”
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They defined interrupted sitting as sessions that lasted fewer than 30 minutes or were interrupted by brief periods of physical activity.
Each additional hour per day of prolonged sedentary behavior was associated with a 10% higher risk of cancer death, the researchers reported in their study, published by PLOS Medicine.
Light physical activity, including household chores, such as ironing, are associated with reduced cancer death risk. (iStock)
Replacing one hour of sitting each day with light activity was associated with a 12% lower risk of cancer death. Replacing 30 minutes with moderate activity was linked to an 8% lower risk, and replacing just five minutes with vigorous activity was associated with a 22% lower risk.
The researchers classified light physical activity as walking at a low speed and performing household chores, such as ironing a shirt or washing dishes.
These findings should be interpreted with caution, the researchers wrote, “because the study cannot prove causality.”
The volunteers may not represent the wider population, they noted, “and the activity monitor captured behavior only during a limited period without showing the context of sedentary behavior, such as work, television viewing or driving.”
Spear said that existing research has linked sedentary behavior to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and several cancers.
Breaking up periods of sitting or reclining with physical activity is key to reducing the risk of cancer death, researchers found. (iStock)
“What is notable here is the finding that how people sit appears to matter, not just the total amount,” she said. “Breaking up sitting with regular movement may provide measurable health benefits.”
According to Spear, other simple lifestyle strategies can be highly effective at reducing cancer-death risk.
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“Stand and move every 30 to 60 minutes, take short walking breaks, including after meals, use the stairs, walk during phone calls and incorporate light activity throughout the day,” she recommended.
“Combined with regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol, not smoking and staying current with recommended cancer screening, these habits can help reduce the risk of breast cancer and other chronic diseases.”
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A simple lifestyle adjustment could potentially slow down the body’s biological aging process, according to new research.
The study, published in the journal Aging, investigated how a diet change and easy exercise regimen affected men between the ages of 50 and 74 over a three-month period.
Researchers designed a clinical trial involving 48 overweight men in Japan. Over a 12-week period, half of the participants followed a strictly structured wellness routine, while the other half maintained their usual habits.
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For the intervention group, the routine required consuming 100 grams of plain yogurt every day.
This group also received individualized dietary counseling that advised them to curb overeating, avoid excessive snacking and cut out sugary drinks.
A simple lifestyle adjustment could potentially slow down the body’s biological aging process, according to new research. (iStock)
They were also instructed to walk or use a stepper machine for roughly 30 minutes a day, at least three days each week.
To measure the impact of these changes, the scientists collected blood samples from all participants before and after the study, and also analyzed DNA for chemical changes that act as indicators of cellular age.
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Specifically, they used a measurement tool called DunedinPACE. Rather than assessing a person’s chronological age in years, this tool calculates the precise rate at which an individual’s body is currently aging.
The men who consumed the probiotic yogurt, adjusted their diets and exercised showed a statistically significant reduction in their pace of aging compared to the control group, the researchers said.
The anti-aging benefits cannot be attributed to any single component on its own due to the variety in the study, the researchers noted. (iStock)
On average, the speed of their biological aging slowed by approximately 2.2%. This reduction is roughly comparable to the slowing of biological aging observed in a previous two-year U.S. study, in which participants reduced their daily calorie intake by 25%.
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This reduction in aging speed happened independently of weight loss , meaning it did not directly correlate with changes in the participants’ body mass index or the exact number of exercise sessions they logged.
The researchers also recorded a noticeable improvement in a specific DNA marker that is linked to kidney function.
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Because this study combined three distinct factors — probiotics, diet and exercise — the authors concluded that the anti-aging benefits cannot be attributed to any single component. Instead, the slowed aging rate appears to be the result of a combined effect.
The reduction in aging speed happened independently of weight loss, the study found. (iStock)
The researchers also acknowledged clear limitations of the study, including its small sample size and short duration. Also, the participant pool was restricted to overweight men of a single nationality.
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More research is needed to determine whether these short-term biological shifts can translate into permanent, long-term health benefits, the study stated.
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