Local News - The Plus Side: Cancer survivor gives hope through book

www.everythingsokaybook.com

MULLICA TOWNSHIP — From the perspective she has today, Alesia Shute considers herself lucky to have been so gravely unlucky.

At 7 years old, Shute was diagnosed with a cancer rarely seen before age 50 that threatened to kill her before her 16th birthday. She spent a traumatic childhood in hospitals around Philadelphia and had invasive surgeries for decades to help her survive.

But the experience that deteriorated her body enriched her spirit, which the....Continue Reading

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Mullica Township woman channeled into philanthropy work and a book she donates to area medical centers explaining her life. It's titled "Everything's Okay."

"My illness was a blessing that taught me at an early age to appreciate all that I had in life," the Sweetwater woman writes, "so I was able to let things go quicker than most people were."

Countless families dealing with their own personal dramas have read the memoir since she self-published it and began giving it to hospitals from the Ronald McDonald House in Camden to AtlantiCare Cancer Care Institute in Egg Harbor Township.

"It'll hit home for anyone that's been through something catastrophic," the 49-year-old mother said at her Pleasant Mills Road home this week.

Shute, about as healthy as she has ever been, chatted Wednesday with friends and supporters at Annata Wine Bar in Hammonton for a fundraiser that would pay for another set of donations.

It was the latest of many gatherings she has put together to fund the printing and delivery costs to distribute "Everything's Okay," a 160-page reflection subtitled "My journey to building a joyous life after surviving childhood cancer."

But Shute and her husband, Cliff, who together formerly owned and operated Sweetwater Casino in Mullica and nightclubs in Atlantic City, are no strangers to giving back.

A baseball field in their hometown is named after them for their generosity to the local recreational leagues. When they owned their bar and restaurant by the Mullica River they ran a benefit called Timmy's Regatta, which raised money for needy children in the region.

Proceeds from the sales of Shute's book, which can be found on Amazon.com as well as at Hammonton gift shops such as Sassy Sweets and The Golden Feather, also go to benefit The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where Shute underwent much of her treatment.

It was at CHOP that she met Dr. C. Everett Koop, the surgeon-in-chief at the center before eventually becoming U.S. surgeon general under President Ronald Reagan.

Shute attributes the pioneering doctor with saving her life from colon cancer through then-innovate surgery, and she has stayed in touch ever since.

"This is one of the great joys of being a pediatric surgeon," Koop wrote in a 1997 letter Shute has framed on the wall at her house. "You can see almost hopeless problems grow up into wonderful, productive people."

She also thanks her husband with supporting her, being an untrained writer going through constant revisions of the book she thought needed to read by families dealing with what her parents went through.

"She's a fighter," he said, "and she had a story to tell."

Before Shute spoke at Wednesday's fundraiser, Matt Deno took the microphone. An admirer from Syracuse, NY, he received her book as a gift from a family member.

Deno has battled ulcerative colitis, a painful intestinal disease, for 11 years, but he said Shute's book gave him strength.

"It felt like someone understood me," he said.

Shute describes in her book that she really did not understand her sickness at first, and neither did her parents. She recalls laying on a bed of ice after her large intestines were removed to bring down a 105-degree fever caused by a collapsed lung, and then being pushed in a wheelchair to another room for more treatment.

"What else could they do to me?" she thought. "What was left?"

At that point she was about 10, and her parents would not tell her until six years later just how dire her situation truly was.

Her last surgery was shortly after her son Johnathan, now 20, was born.

And now she is thinking about developing her book into a screenplay and possibly a made-for-TV movie.

In the meantime she is still traveling throughout the region, telling parents with children in other seemingly hopeless situations her story.

"They can look at me, because I've been there," she said. "They can look at me and see their child's future."

Editor's Note: Readers often say they want more stories about the positive things people are doing throughout southern New Jersey. We heard you. Starting today, The Press will regularly feature front-page stories about you and your neighbors' contributions to "The Plus Side" of life. If you have a story suggestion, please e-mail theplusside@pressofac.com

Contact Lee Procida: 609-457-8707 LProcida@pressofac.com

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