Hunter Gifford

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope, encouragement, and prayers. Please know any donations on the caring bridge site goes directly to a CaringBridge 100%, it's a bit misleading. Nothing supports Hunter, but rather the CaringBridge site gets all the money.




Hunter is a 7 year old who attends Lincoln Choice K-8 school ( the BEST school in the universe) in Rochester, MN. He went to the doctor on October 26th, 2016 for pain with urination. As a nurse, I was fairly confident it was just a simple urinary tract infection......what else could it be right. But to my surprise, they found a mass growing out of the bone actually pushing on his bladder. When his bladder gets full, it causes him pain. As more tests were done, we soon found out on 11/1/16 that Hunter has Metastatic Bone Cancer. It is Ewing's Sarcoma to be exact. How a child who was running around, climbing trees just 3 days before- can suddenly be ill with bone cancer is something none of us can understand.

Hunter will get 14 cycles of chemo. He will receive Proton Beam Radiation starting Mid February 2017 along with the chemo to his abdomen and pelvis. Once all Chemo is complete, he will receive radiation to the 8 nodes in his Right lung.



More about our family:


My husband- Steve, works at Mayo- currently on intermittent, paid FMLA

Me, mom- Lisa , works at Mayo - currently off on medical leave.




Ian-oldest child (soon to be 10 yrs old.) 4th grader at Lincoln Choice School.


Alec- middle child (9 years old) 3rd grader at Harriet Bishop school.


Hunter- youngest (7 years old) 2nd grader at Lincoln Choice school.

Hunter loves life! He is busy from the time he gets up until he goes to bed. He loves to pull things apart and build. He spends time with Legos daily. It's not unusual(lately) for him to have a lego bucket on one side and barf bucket on the other. 🤢

He loves Legos, Remote control cars, magnetic toys & blocks, flat stanly books. Favorite color- Green

Favorite food- red grapes

Favorite animal- monkey


He also Loves Cheetoes, fruit snacks, especially red, and lollipops (they help his dry mouth). He loves bugs (total boy). Does bug catching in summer. He is worried he needs a new bug catcher. I assured him in spring we would buy a new one. His broke at the end of fall, the weekend before he was diagnosed. He enjoys, all cartoons. He likes the minions, Star Wars, Dr who, bugs bunny, music (all types), playing his iPad, flash lights, light sticks/glow sticks, small cars/trucks (matchbox) with tracks, fuse beads, dry erase boards/markers, making forts(our basement currently has an awesome one), going swimming, anything his big brothers like 😉. Enjoys pizza, popcorn, cookies, vanilla cupcakes/cake, tacos, bacon, cookies, and water to drink. Going to Cherry Berry, fazolies, Duncan donuts💕 (he LOVES Duncan Donuts) and Culver's. Loves Christmas lights, riding the trolley (done twice), going to movies and watching them at home. Taking walks, doing ceramics, bowling, putt-par golf, sledding and he Loves dogs- (we have 2 guinea pigs)But dad is allergic, so he can't have one. He puts water out all summer for dogs who might walk by. Lol. Hunter doesn't like to shop ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, for ANYTHING.