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Family shares son's story of hope ahead of 19th annual Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation Lemon Ball

Family shares their story of hope ahead of annual Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation Lemon Ball
Family shares their story of hope ahead of annual Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation Lemon Ball 03:16

The Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation will host its annual Lemon Ball this Saturday. One of the families being recognized this year is the Oches family and their son Jude, who battled retinoblastoma as a young child. 

For 6-year-old Jude Oches, the moments of joy he now shares with his family come after years of uncertainty. It's been a long journey for the Oches family.

"Jude was diagnosed at 9 months old," said his mom, Katie Oches.

Jude was not even crawling yet when the doctors noticed a small tumor on his retina, which tests revealed to be retinoblastoma.

"Ever since he was diagnosed, I don't know if this was just my being naive but I just thought, 'Oh, he'll be fine,'" his dad, Sam Oches, recalled. "The doctors will treat it."

"We did a lot of different treatments including radiation, plaque therapy, laser therapy, and a couple rounds of chemotherapy when he was a really tiny baby," explained Katie Oches.

After some signs of hope, they got the crushing news that the tumor had not only relapsed, it had spread.

"That was I think when we really knew that the eye had to come out," said Sam Oches. "Because if there was a chance that leaving the eye in would affect the prognosis and make it worse and that there would be any chance that it wasn't a hundred percent, then we had to make that decision to remove the eye."

Jude now has a prosthetic eye, made to look just like his real one, and behind the part that's visible is a symbol of Jude's superpowers – a Batman logo. Jude, his big sister Mabel and his parents are also channeling his powers to help the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. They raised money in their Ohio neighborhood by hosting their own lemonade stand, and dad Sam is on the advisory council for the foundation.

"I was able to kind of take an active role with Alex's in helping to support the organization," he said. 

A few weeks ago, Jude had what may be one of his final MRIs and the scan came back clean.

"Having gone through what Jude went through, what our whole family went through, we have an opportunity now to be a part of other patients' lives, other families to be a support for them through Alex's Lemonade Stand," said Sam. "We're a part of this family this community of people now who have been through childhood cancer and as part of that community, we want to lift each other up and support each other."

The 19th annual Lemon Ball benefiting Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation will take place on Saturday, Jan. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Springfield Country Club.

CBS News Philadelphia's Kate Bilo and Janelle Burrell will be emceeing the event. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event visit the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation website. 

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