Jacksonville, Fl \u2014 20 years of changing lives. The UF Health Proton Therapy Institute in Jacksonville has a huge bell in its lobby for patients to celebrate the end of treatment. <\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t always there. <\/p>\n
When Audrey Anderson was diagnosed at 5 with a rare, inoperable brain tumor, specialists in Australia didn\u2019t have the expertise. They guided her family to eventually seek options in the United Kingdom. Sue Anderson says they were eventually connected to the University of Florida Proton Therapy Institute.<\/p>\n
As a parent, Sue says there is an extra chamber of strength she found to hunt, endlessly, for Audrey to have a long, healthy life. <\/p>\n
They arrived in Jacksonville for a 2.5 month stay with daily proton treatment. The entire family stayed nearby at the beach. Friendships were made. And lifelong memories for Audrey. <\/p>\n
Sue says she knew proton therapy would be a silver bullet but she was confident in the treatment being right for Audrey. <\/p>\n
After she ended treatment, there was a celebration for Audrey which was similar for all the kids at the time. It included cake and decorations. <\/p>\n
But Sue noted there was something missing for the adults in treatment. And she was so touched by the generosity of the UFPTI team that they wanted to give back. <\/p>\n
So Aud\u2019s Chime was coordinated, and eventually hung – meaning the family made a return trip to Jax from Australia to celebrate. <\/p>\n
Reflecting back on Audrey\u2019s treatment and the milestone of the Proton Therapy Institute\u2019s 20th anniversary, Sue says it\u2019s her safest place in this whole journey. <\/p>\n
LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW: <\/p>\n
\u25b6 Listen to Jacksonville\u2019s Morning News Interviews<\/a><\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and traffic app. And click here<\/a> to subscribe to our daily 3 Big Things newsletter.<\/p>\n \u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville, Fl \u2014 20 years of changing lives. The UF Health Proton Therapy Institute in Jacksonville has a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[796,57082,57084,794,28,116,118,117,57079,795,349,57083,7457,57081,57085,57080],"class_list":["post-112301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-796","tag-aud-chime","tag-australia-cancer-patient-jacksonville","tag-duval","tag-florida","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonvilles-morning-news","tag-ne-florida","tag-northeast-florida","tag-sue-and-audrey-anderson","tag-uf-health","tag-uf-proton-therapy-institute","tag-ufpti","tag-university-of-florida-proton-therapy-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}