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Holley Wade remembers the day clearly.
Last year, just before Thanksgiving, she and her husband Bill were at a fundraiser football game. Tampa police officers were battling Tampa firefighters in a game dubbed the Badge Bowl. It was a benefit for Taylor Dumke, a 9-year-old girl who had a brain tumor.
Mrs. Wade, mother of two, watched Taylor's mother on the sidelines that cold November night.
"How in the world is this woman keeping it together?" she thought.
Today, a year later, Mrs. Wade has a different thought.
"Now I look in the mirror," she said. "And it's me."
Her son Daniel Frydrych is 9. He has a brain tumor, just like Taylor.
Doctors discovered the tumor in August, and immediately started using phrases like "aggressive," "high dose chemotherapy" and "high risk." Since then, Daniel has had 19 CAT scans, five surgeries and countless finger pricks to test his blood. Those are the worst of all, Daniel says. He cries at the very idea of them.
Holley and Bill Wade are used to dealing with disaster. Wade, who is Daniel's stepfather, is a fire captain and the department's public information officer. He is well-known on Tampa Bay television, the calm face and steady voice at at the scene of fires, car crashes and other calamities.
Mrs. Wade is an emergency planner with Hillsborough County. She...