Framingham Nurse Who Adopted Patient's Son Starts College Fund
FRAMINGHAM (CBS) - A local nurse who spends her days helping patients extended that care even further. When a patient died, she adopted the woman's son.
Stephen McNulty was nine years-old at the time and didn't have anyone to take him in. So, Karen Mott adopted him and nearly four years later, she's asking for the community's help to start his college fund.
"Any school would be great but it would be even more amazing to go to a reputable school," McNulty said.
Stephen McNulty is being modest about himself and his journey.
But don't let the 13-year-old's beautiful smile fool you into thinking life's been good for him, in fact for this kid it's been pretty rough. When he was nine years old his mother Patricia was diagnosed with neck and head cancer.
And as if that cloud wasn't dark enough, while his mother was dying of cancer his father got into a car accident which left him with severe brain damage.
"At that point I was really wondering what was going to happen to her and what was going to happen to me," Stephen said.
But Stephen's silver lining was Karen Mott, his mother's oncology nurse at Metrowest Cancer Center in Framingham.
"One way I could get her to really smile and open up would be to mention her son Stephen," Mott said.
Five weeks before Patricia McNulty died, Karen and her husband Michael, who already have three children, told her they would take care of Stephen.
"I was really thinking of the family of humanity, like I was thinking that this could be my sister," Mott said.
"People who were strangers to me weeks before my mother passed away, it was just really unbelievable," Stephen said.
Before Stephen's mother died, she had one dying wish: that her bright son would go to college and make a difference in this world.
A GoFundMe page has been setup so Stephen can one day fulfill his dream.
"Through all of this, having gone through what I've gone through, being able to still be here and be surrounded by love is really somewhat of a miracle," Stephen said.
