I am walking to honor Charlie Capalbo, who lost his 5-year battle with AML on 4/24/22. Charlie spent 745 nights in-patient over the five-year period.
He was a month shy of his 24th birthday.
Sadly, I did not get the honor of meeting Charlie. I was gifted, and blessed, with time, the time Charlie was robbed of by AML.
Throughout this past year I have had the opportunity to get to know and be apart of Charlie’s entire family. Through shared laughs, cries, stories and memories, I have gotten to know a little bit about Charlie, and he was truly one of a kind. He was a fierce fighter against his disease, getting to remission three times, surviving countless and some rare life-threatening complications. He maxed out every chemo, radiation, immunotherapy available, and had a bone marrow transplant from his younger brother Will in 2019 that bought him some good time. He overcame lower extremity paralysis from treatment twice, relearning to walk both times while at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.
Through it all Charlie never gave up, he never said no to another set of exercises and he never complained. He was truly resilient and still empathetic to so many others when he was suffering. His positive attitude, optimism and laugh were contagious.
Before Charlie passed away, his family and friends promised him that we would continue to raise funds for AML research, they would never stop sharing Charlie’s story, never stop fighting they would never let his legacy die.
Charlie Capalbo and his legacy will continue to inspire groundbreaking research so that no child has to suffer the way Charlie did. We would keep his spirit alive through telling his story and of course, finding a reason to laugh every day, the way Charlie always did.
Your support will go directly to the Charlie Capalbo Memorial Fund and will further pediatric leukemia research in Dr. Scott Armstrong’s lab at the Dana-Farber Institute.
Thank you for helping me continue to share Charlie’s magic and keeping his legacy alive!
