St. Jude Dream Home Showplace

Meet Rinoa

Rinoa is artistic and imaginative. She loves to draw, especially the creative “little critters” she invents.

In the summer of 2022, Rinoa was scheduled for an MRI due to headaches and other symptoms. The night before the scan, she developed double vision, and at that point, her mother, Kary, knew they would find something wrong in her daughter’s brain.

It was a cancerous brain tumor called medulloblastoma.

Following surgery at the hospital near their home, Rinoa had posterior fossa syndrome, a condition that severely limited her functioning. As she recovered, she started drawing her “little critters” again, and that was hugely comforting to her mom. “It just made me know she was still there,” Kary said.

When they were offered a referral to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®, her parents didn’t hesitate. Not only did St. Jude relieve the financial burden of treatment, but St. Jude offered proton therapy, one of the most advanced and precise forms of radiation treatment today, as part of Rinoa’s treatment plan. She has also received chemotherapy. “I love St. Jude, and I’m thankful for it,” she said