DYKER HEIGHTS — Edward McCarthy was 14 when he noticed something was wrong. He started to experience headaches and eventually an entire “personality change.”
Then, one day, while at the movies, he recalled that his vision blurred like water trapped behind goggles.
“I’m trying to read the menu at the movie theater, and I can’t see it, it’s so blurry,” McCarthy said. “It’s like you have a cataract. Like there’s a film over my eye.”
Within days, he was rushed to the hospital, where an MRI revealed Anaplastic ependymoma, a Stage 3 brain cancer so rare that doctors who had practiced for decades sought him out because they had only read about it in textbooks.
Surgery came the next day, on his mother’s birthday. Radiation followed through the start of high school, and he barely attended class for three months.
Now, the 26-year-old McCarthy is five years cancer-free and a math and religion teacher for fourth and fifth graders at St. Ephrem Catholic Academy in Dyker Heights.
On May 15, the school hosted its “Night of Hope,” a community fundraiser honoring McCarthy and other families touched by cancer.
The evening’s message: “No Family Fights Alone.” The event featured a student talent show, a live DJ, raffles, and interactive crafts, with all proceeds going directly to affected families.
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Principal Michael Phillips said McCarthy’s story has left a mark.
“It’s amazing to know that he has been able to overcome that struggle, become something he was passionate about, which is being a teacher,” Phillips said. “Now he is in that role where he is leading young minds every day.”
McCarthy’s road wasn’t easy — at one point during his recovery, he received Anointing of the Sick. His radiation treatment required a custom face mask strapping him to a table, so the beam hit only the tumor site. He developed claustrophobia that never left. A burn mark remains on his forehead. Where the tumor once sat, there is now a cavity that will never fill back in.
“It’s like deforestation of the brain,” McCarthy said. “It can’t regrow. It just is what it is.”
Through it all, he said he has leaned on his faith. On his left shoulder sits a tattoo: a silver-and-gray ribbon — the official awareness ribbon for brain cancer and brain tumors — with a cross embedded in it.
One especially meaningful moment for McCarthy came in September 2015, when Pope Francis landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport and made his way to Mass at Madison Square Garden. McCarthy was able to greet the late pope, who didn’t know him or his story.
“He shook my hand and touched exactly where I was radiated and sick,” McCarthy recalled. “I didn’t tell him. Zero.
“At that point, you got to believe. There’s no reason for someone like that to do something without any intention.”
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St. Ephrem started holding the “Night of Hope” in 2014, before it was put on hold during the pandemic. Phillips said it was important to revive it this year after he noticed an uptick in cancer diagnoses and recurrences in the school community.
“We thought they were free. We thought they were survivors,” Phillips said. “And then, when they told us it was back, and that they were going to be on treatment for the rest of their lives — it was a gut punch.”
McCarthy said it was important for him to share his story.
“You have to do what’s right, not just for you, but for the person who needs it,” he said.
Fifth grader Gracie Crowley said she came to honor her grandmother, a survivor.
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“I came here tonight to also honor her,” she said.
Phillips said he was overwhelmed by the number of people who attended the event.
“Tonight is just a message to them: They’re not alone,” he said.