Young survivor puts a face on Four Diamonds' mission

By Gail Franklin

- For BlueMag

Clay Hamman has been embraced by Miss Pennsylvania, hung out with NFL player Robbie Gould and regularly has play dates with sorority and fraternity members from Penn State.

It’s quite the social scene for a 5-year-old boy who’s learning his ABCs, but Clay has also been through more, physically and emotionally, than most adults.

Diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer at 19 months, Clay and his parents, Patti and Tim, were helped by the Four Diamonds Fund during the past four years of surgeries, chemotherapy and checkups at Penn State Children’s Hospital in Hershey.

Four Diamonds has a partnership with the Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, known as Thon, which has helped raise millions of dollars for the organization since 1977.

The Petersburg family has attended three Thon weekends — where Clay met Gould — and they’re gearing up for their fourth trip to the event this weekend at the Bryce Jordan Center.

“The enthusiasm in there lifts the hair on the back of your neck,” Patti Hamman said. “It is just so overwhelming that so many are there for that reason.”

Clay points at the people he recognizes as he watches a video of last year’s Thon and gets up to dance around the living room as the soundtrack plays some lively music. His parents try to control his enthusiasm for jumping up and down on the furniture but it’s clear they’re just happy that he’s healthy now.

Known as the largest student-run philanthropy in the country, Thon raised $5.2 million for Four Diamonds last year.

That money helps families like the Hammans, who found themselves in a hospital room in Hershey just days after they noticed a hardness on the side of their young son’s belly.

Tim Hamman said the social worker from Four Diamonds who helped them during that stay was a “godsend.”

“He was amazing,” Tim Hamman said. “The first day we were admitted he came and told us who he was, gave us gas cards, phone cards, meal passes and told us if we needed to talk to someone about anything he’d always be there.”

After the surgery and chemotherapy treatments, a tumor was found on Clay’s lung and he had more surgery. The treatments damaged Clay’s ability to hear high-pitched sounds and impeded his learning to talk.

A $2,400 hearing aid that could help wasn’t covered by their health insurance, so the Hammans planned to take out a loan to pay for it until the Four Diamonds Fund stepped in and covered the cost.

Since 1972, the fund has helped more than 2,000 families who have a child being treated for cancer at Hershey. The fund also backs research to find a cure.

Beyond the fundraising, Thon supports Four Diamonds families with special events for the children throughout the year and when Penn State student organizations “adopt” a family.

The Alpha Chi Omega sorority and the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity sponsor the Hammans. Penn State senior Beth Hiberl, the family relations chairwoman for her sorority, organizes trips to visit and play with Clay.

“Clay is just the most delightful child, and I feel really lucky that I was given the opportunity to get to know the family,” Hiberl said. “Their story has made me realize this money really is used for amazing things.”

Clay’s story is one of hope, Hiberl said, recalling when she was a freshman and it was hard to get to know him because he was always undergoing chemotherapy.

He has now been cancer-free for more than two years.

“If we get to five years, they say we pretty much have licked it,” his mother said.

The Hammans still make regular trips to Hershey to make sure the cancer hasn’t returned, and Patti Hamman said that after the devastation of finding Clay’s second tumor, she will never take his health for granted again.

“One of the doctors at Hershey told me, ‘You’ve just got to to enjoy every day,’ ” she said. “It wasn’t necessarily what I wanted to hear but they tell you what you need to hear.”