Meadow Carmody
Meadow Carmody was born on October 25th and immediately brought a spirit of adventure to her family. A few years later, she became a big sister to Skye and the two Carmody girls became a true force to be reckoned with.
​
Meadow loves the beach, so her hometown of San Diego is the perfect place for her to live. She has been swimming since she was three years old and swam competitively in the teen team starting at age eleven. She loves snorkeling and being in the ocean. Besides being in the water, Meadow loves the forest and visiting national parks, camping , being outside in nature, and backpacking for days with her dad and little sister since she was very young .
Beyond her love of the outdoors, Meadow loves her houseplants and fish tanks. Most of her plants are native to tropical regions of the world so she is always looking up their ideal habitat indoors.
She is also very passionate about theater, though recently she has taken more of a behind the scenes role, doing tech for her upcoming play at school. She is currently attending school online since she misses so much for treatments and appointments but she still attends theater daily in person.
Diagnosis
Meadow was diagnosed with DIPG April 5th, 2023 when she was fourteen years old and in the middle of eighth grade. She had a biopsy of the mass that night and it was confirmed DIPG. She woke up from the biopsy not being able to walk or swallow, but healed quickly and only had to stay in the ICU for five days. All she wanted was to go home. After being discharged, Meadow started six weeks of palliative radiation immediately. Meadow initially participated in a trial at Rady's Children's Hospital, but it ended up being toxic and unsustainable for Meadow. After a few weeks on trial s she had her first seizure and spent two weeks in the ICU. Meadow had her second brain surgery to put in an ETV, a drain so that she does not get hydrocephalus. After those complications, Meadow and her family decided to come off that initial trial and search for other options.
​
She made the switch to a Car-T Immunotherapy trial, that is offered in Stanford and Seattle. She was not accepted to the Stanford trial but was thankfully accepted into the trial at Seattle Children's Hospital. ​
​
Meadow had to have invasive brain surgery to put an omiyan ( which is a type of catheter in her brain) for the delivery of the car-t cells. Since this was considered an “elective” surgery they could not use their local pediatric neurosurgery team and had this surgery in LA Keiser pediatric. Meadow got home on October 31st and that night sat outside and handed out candy all bandaged up from her surgery! It looked like a costume, but it was not! This is just one example of Meadows' sense of humor and positivity. Her family couldn't believe she had the energy to celebrate Halloween and ask all the little kids about their costumes.
She started treatment in Seattle in January of 2024 and her family had to live there for a month for observation and be close to the hospital. Now she travels to Seattle twice a month, every two weeks for infusion treatments. Things on her trial were going well. Meadow was so excited to start her sophomore year of high school and start going back to school full time. She was swimming again and hanging out with friends. Unfortunately, she had another setback and suffered an aneurysm that her team felt was related to her initial radiation therapy and she ended up spending eleven days in the ICU in August of 2024.
​
Despite a very rough road and more than her fair share of setbacks, Meadow has continued to be a force of positivity and outspoken advocacy two years into her DIPG journey. She recently had the opportunity to speak at the BrainStorm Summit about her experiences as a DIPG patient and recorded an episode of the podcast, "I Can't Die I'm Busy" where she was able to speak frankly about life as a teen with a terminal cancer diagnosis. You can watch her episode here.
​
Meadow's strength and determination to use her disease to make the world a little bit better is an inspiration and the Archer Foundation is proud to support her in her quest for adventure and hope every day. ​
