MOULTRIE, Ga. – A little over 20 years ago, citizens of Moultrie were introduced to their resident wonder child Mason Lee Foster. An infant at the time, he was diagnosed with infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia – ALO – and was given only a 20% chance of living. 

“Mason was born June 7, 1998. His dad was serving in Korea when mason was a month old,” said mother Lynn Williams. “When his dad came home to the Texarkana area, where we were living at the time, two weeks after he got back, I found a doctor who would test Mason, who said that he had cancer. 

“We went to a Little Rock doctor who diagnosed him with infant acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” Williams said. “We had less than 21 hours before we lost him because of the low blood cell counts in his body. We looked for a match and found a little girl born a year before in 1997 who had as close of a match for him. He went through and had radiation but then they had him on the ventilator for eight days because it burned his lungs so bad.”

Mason turned one on July 7 and received his bone marrow transplants on July 9. He needed to survive two years to be cancer free; come July 9, 2020, he’ll be celebrating his twenty-first year being cancer free.

“He had brain hemorrhages at age 10 or 11,” his mother said. “His marrow transplants were experimental, he had five brain surgeries. At 16, he was diagnosed with diabetes. 

“It felt like everything that could have gone wrong, but he is a miracle in every way that you look at it,” she said. “The cancer alone stunted his growth, and when he had hemorrhages, he had paralysis on the whole right side of his body. But he has never let a single thing stop him from doing anything. 

“He was considered three points above what was called ‘mentally retarded’ at 6, and he took special classes, but he pulled himself out of them on his own,” she said. “He graduated with his class and never let what he’s been through slow him down. God blessed me a million times over with him.”

Foster, having grown up in Moultrie, currently lives in Panama City, Fla. He’ll be celebrating his 22nd birthday and his 21st year of being cancer-free with friends and family.

“I have no idea what I’ll do yet,” Foster said. “It will probably be going to the bar with the family that I have here. It’s exciting though.”

He loves sports, even sees himself working in the industry someday.

“I would hope to be working for the NCAA or NFL or NBA,” he said. “Not as a player but as a manager type. Right now, I am a supervisor at a resort called Treasure Island in Panama City, Florida. It’s not the most exciting thing. I try to keep the place clean on the outside, help guests as they need it. Every day is a little bit different.”

As for conquering his illness and being able to celebrate his 21st birthday, Mason said that he thought it was pretty amazing, given the circumstances.

“It’s pretty awesome, even though I can’t really remember much about the illness as a kid. I wasn’t supposed to make it past age 1, so to see 22 is a real blessing,” Foster said. “When I was 9, I had to go through three brain surgeries, and though the results saved me, it took my ability to taste on the right side of my mouth and I had to slightly relearn how to walk. It definitely wasn’t easy, and it took a lot of self-searching, but I’m still here. I’m okay. No matter what life throws out you, you can always bounce back from cancer, or anything. Trust in God and anything is possible.”