ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 1, 1995 TAG: 9512010053
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
HE SET A RECORD, but most importantly, he's still cancer-free.
A British boy who holds the world's record for receiving get-well cards returned for a checkup Thursday and was declared cured of the brain cancer that originally was diagnosed as incurable.
``I feel great, fantastic,'' Craig Shergold told University of Virginia neurosurgeon Neal Kassell, who removed an egg-size tumor from his brain in March 1991.
Craig, now 16 and fond of telling dirty jokes, was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for getting 33 million get-well cards. Getting in the book was the last wish he made to an organization that makes them come true.
After failed surgery in England, doctors told Craig's working-class parents to take him home and let him die.
Friends asked John Kluge to send a get-well card. Instead, the Charlottesville billionaire asked Kassell if he could help the boy from suburban London, then paid his medical expenses.
Kassell thought the operation would extend Craig's life one year at best. ``By the time of the operation, he was close to dead,'' Kassell said.
The growth turned out to be benign, but Kassell said there was still a 25 percent chance that the cancer would recur in the tumor, which was reduced to the size of a quarter.
Examinations reviewed Thursday showed that the tissue was dead and shrinking after almost five years, a benchmark period of time in brain tumor cases, Kassell said. ``He's cured from this tumor.''
Craig was greeted with hugs from Kassell's staff.
``My goodness, look how big you are!'' physician's assistant Lisa Braden told the 5-foot-5-inch Craig, now a foot taller than he was at age 11 when the surgery was performed.
``I still remember you pulling all those stitches out of my head,'' he told her.
``Now I would have to stand on a stool to do it,'' she said.
Marion Shergold, who wrote a book about the boy dubbed ``Kid Courage,'' said her son is still getting five sacks of mail a day at home. About the same amount is coming in to the Atlanta-based Children's Wish Foundation and being stored in two warehouses.
The foundation paid for Craig to visit children with cancer at hospitals in Atlanta, New York and Washington this week to give them inspiration. He also visited Kluge in New York, and the businessman gave the boy a pair of cuff links.
``You're a man now,'' Marion Shergold told him when he opened the gift case.
Craig has stopped counting individual letters, but estimates by the volume of mail that he has received 200 million.
``That's enough - he's well now,'' Kassell told reporters in a conference room across from his office. ``Yeah, send them to Dr. Kassell,'' Craig joked. ``That's not funny,'' Kassell said. ``I thought it was,'' Craig said as they both laughed.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Craig Shergold, 16, and his mother, Marion, revisitby CNBDr. Neal Kassell in Charlottesville on Thursday. Craig has received
more get-well cards than anyone in the world. color.