Kanon Smith
Kanon Smith was born on August 6th and immediately his family knew he was going to be something special. Kanon loves music and music videos. He is so eclectic and remembers lyrics and can sing so many songs from the 1920's to current. Opera, rock , pop, country, it's so surprising what he comes up with sometimes. His dad, Shane says that he could try to share a song from his own childhood ( the 1980's) and Kanon might already know it. Besides his love of music, he also loves animals! He has a heart for all animals, buts watches a lot of cat videos and dog videos. He gets so excited to share all of these things too with the people he cares about. He is happiest singing to people, sharing videos, sharing historical facts and maybe a little something about Star Wars. He has an absolutely infectious laugh. Whenever they go to doctor appointments he always has all of the staff rolling before the appointment even gets started.
Being a young man of eclectic taste, he loves watching videos, mostly music. He used to love riding his bicycle and jumping on our trampoline, but isn't as able to do that anymore. He loves Weird Al Yankovich, and got to see him in concert last year and have tickets to see him again in September . Kanons's Grandma and Grandpa have a cabin in Lake City Colorado, and he really love to spend time there. He also loves to visit his family in Oklahoma, Kanon's family lives in Oregon, so it's always an big trip and a big adventure when they get to visit their extended family out of state .His favorite food is probably steak and he loves a good ribeye.
Diagnosis
Kanon has a unique diagnosis journey. It's seems like it was about two years before diagnosis that he began having headaches, nausea and was just wiped out all of the time. He was previously very active so this was a pretty drastic change. It took about six months of going to his primary care , being diagnosed with migraines and trying to treatments for migraines before his parents were able to get the doctor to order imaging. At that point they found he had pretty severe hydrocephalus and he was diagnosed with a tectal glioma. That was 2023. Then in 2025 he had a concerning MRI . What was originally diagnosed as a benign tumor had grown more than expected. In June of 2025 Kanon underwent a biopsy and a week later they met with the oncologist who informed them of the diagnosis. His family was devastated . Just completely blindsided and broken. They began proton therapy at Fred Hutch in Seattle a couple of months afterwards. It was quite frustrating getting started as there was miscomunication and delay between the hospitals ( mostly related to getting his imaging.) it was when they were in Seattle for proton therapy that his parents discovered Car-t and the Brain Child clinical trial program there. They met with the car-t team during their time in Seattle for proton therapy. After thoughtful discussion with the teams, they chose to pursue car-t as a clinical trail for Kanon . After some initial delay, the infusions seemed to go pretty smoothly for Kanon , he did have some headaches and nausea, but they were easily managed . It was actually much easier than the proton therapy which actually was pretty terrible with a lot of nausea , headaches and anxiety requiring anesthesia for all of his proton treatments. So... fast forward to today, Kanon has gone through the induction phase of the car T trial. Had 1 post induction MRI, which showed a stable tumor and has had 2 more car-treatments since. Hi next MRI is in July and his parents are a bit nervous. but hopeful.
Kanon has an incredible support system with his devoted mom and dad, extended family and wider community. The Archer Foundation is proud to join this network of hope as Kanon and his family focus on cherishing the good days.
