Student battles adversity

Emily Midling
Staff Reporter

Anyone who has wandered into the lobby of Henry Hall  may have seen political science major Christopher Boes, whether they’ve known it or not.

Boes, 26, spends most of his time outside of class either in the lobby of Henry Hall or playing his Playstation 3. A Muskegon native, he seems like he would be your everyday college student, but he’s gone through quite a bit in the past few years, he said.
In 2009, Boes was diagnosed with a brain tumor and has been receiving treatment ever since.

“Doctors told my parents I had a year [to live],” he said. “That was two years ago. I lost 30 or 40 pounds in a month, which is a quarter of my weight; that’s how sick I was.”

Now, Boes has monthly chemotherapy treatments, which have decreased from the biweekly ones he was receiving before. He also attends doctor’s appointments every four months at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

Getting to doctor’s appointments in North Carolina would ordinarily be a challenge, but thanks to a Michigan charity, Wings of Mercy, Boes and his family don’t have to worry about how he gets to his appointments.

Wings of Mercy is a nonprofit organization where pilots donate their time and planes to fly patients to their doctor’s appointments in faraway areas since 1991. Wings of Mercy estimates that without their assistance, 80 percent of the patients they help would otherwise be unable to attend their appointments, according to their website.

With Wings of Mercy’s help, he was well enough to register for classes at Western Michigan University again this fall. Boes, who started at WMU in 2007, is excited for his return.

“I’m just glad to be back,” he said. “I just wanted to be back in school. I love it.”

For more information on Wings of Mercy, visit wingsofmercy.org.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=29664

Posted by njstrehl on Feb 19 2012. Filed under Breaking, Campus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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