News

Penn. Medic Stricken With Rare, Aggressive Cancer

Braden Ashe

10/13/2014

Oct. 13--Sept. 11 is a date that weighs heavily on the hearts of millions of Americans, but for few others has it laid a greater burden than on Thomas Filo IV.

A Parks volunteer firefighter and paramedic, Filo rues the date not only as the anniversary of the attack that claimed the lives of 341 fellow first responders in New York, but as the day he received the worst news of his 27 years on Earth.

On Sept. 11, 2014, about two months before his son's first birthday, Filo was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of neuro-endocrine cancer. The pain in his abdomen that he believed was a pulled muscle turned out to be two desmoplasmic small round cell tumors.

It's a type of cancer that, according to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, carries a 15 percent five-year survival rate. And with fewer than 200 cases reported, no standard way to treat it has been developed.

Filo's doctors have decided to move forward with a plan that involves surgeries and several rounds of chemotherapy, the first of which began on Friday.

To ease the financial and emotional burden of the treatment, Filo's family and friends are asking for community support to subsidize his medical bills.

Already, about 100 people have donated a combined $5,000 to an online account. Another several hundred was raised last month with a boot drive through the Parks Township Volunteer Fire Department, which Filo has served since he was 13 years old. More fundraising efforts, such as the sale of T-shirts, are in the works.

Fire department Secretary Stacy John said the largest fundraising event will be a benefit spaghetti dinner and Chinese auction on Sunday, Oct. 19, in the fire hall. They hope to raise $50,000 total through the different fundraising avenues.

"Thomas has always been one of the most kind and caring people I've ever met," John said. "He always puts others and the community before himself -- even now he does, with all that he's been dealing with."

Sunday, Oct. 5, Filo responded to a report of a house fire in Vandergrift and did his part to knock the fire down. Filo had to book a baby-sitter to watch his son, Thomas Filo V, and was less than a month removed from his original diagnosis, but still was one of the first firefighters on the scene.

"It's just what I do and what I've always done," Filo said. "Yeah, I have cancer, but it's not like nobody else has problems. Those people needed help. That's just how I was raised, I guess."

Filo's father, Thomas Filo III, served as chief of the Parks Township Volunteer Fire Department for 17 years and remains a firefighter. Filo IV began as a junior firefighter there when he was 13 and graduated to a senior firefighter about five years later. Last year, he began volunteering as a paramedic with Lower Kiski EMS, as well.

His sister, Tammie Baum, and her husband are firefighters, too. Each runs with Vandergrift Fire Department No. 1, and Baum doubles as a fundraiser for the Parks Township Volunteer Fire Department. She has been one of those spearheading the fundraising movement on behalf of her younger brother.

"The outpouring of support from the community has been unbelievable," Baum said, choking back tears. "People I barely know have been there to comfort us and let us know they're there for us. The response has been amazing."

John said she's been close with the Filo family for a long time and has enjoyed watching Filo grow up.

"He's like the son I never had," she said. "He's always wanted kids. All he wants to do is see his son grow up."

Filo's GoFundMe page is https://www.gofundme.com/f0vmnk.

Braden Ashe is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-226-4673 or bashe@tribweb.com.