Another Kind Of Fighter

ONE DAY in the spring of 2006, three cancer patients at Children's Hospital of Austin posed with Lance Armstrong for an SI cover story about his efforts to raise money for cancer research. One of the kids was Sean Mack (right, standing), a 16-year-old from Round Rock, Texas, who in '03 had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Sean's mother, Leslie Brown, was happy and proud for her son, even though, she says, "I didn't know he'd be on the cover" of the May 8, 2006 issue.

In the photo Mack is smiling, his left elbow resting on Armstrong's shoulder. The relaxed pose belied his fighting spirit. Three months after the picture was taken, Mack was taken off life support; after lying still for a few minutes he sat up and said to his mother, "I'm not going anywhere." (His doctor was so surprised that "his knees were shaking," says Brown.) Mack walked out of intensive care two weeks later and lived, unexpectedly, until June 12 of this year.

Brown, a single mother, is working part-time, but with medical and funeral bills piling up, she was evicted in July and is living in a motel with Sean's twin brother, Steven, and her daughter Sierra, 10. Last Friday a foundation was set up to help Brown. Donations in Sean's memory can be sent to:

Sean Mack Memorial Fund/First Texas Bank
500 Round Rock Avenue, P.O. Box 5
Round Rock, TX 78680