When Haden DeRoberts became sick October of his freshman year, he figured it was mono or a typical bug traveling around the dorms. He went to Hudson Health Center, and doctors there were unable to diagnose him. So when he headed home for his cousin’s wedding, scheduling a doctor’s appointment was a priority.
DeRoberts’ blood tests came back with peculiar results. He was sent to Riverside Methodist Hospital the next morning and was then diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
After five chemotherapy treatments, a failed bone marrow transplant and a grim uncertainty about the future, DeRoberts received a successful bone marrow transplant in May 2012.
DeRoberts, an undecided junior, is back at Ohio University and ready to tackle his dreams, including bringing Folk Fest to Athens.
He started Folk Fest his junior year at Grandview Heights High School in Columbus, and it grew from a free concert to a philanthropic event after a few years.
”I did it in my backyard where it started off small with a group of friends, and every year it got progressively bigger,” he said. “We started to make T-shirts a few years ago, and that’s where the money comes from for the organizations we donate to.”
When looking for a home off campus, a backyard was one of DeRoberts’ top priorities so Folk Fest could happen, he said.
Since getting diagnosed with leukemia, DeRoberts has focused his attention on Be The Match, the foundation through which he found his bone marrow donor. He also paired with Hillel to do a video telling his story, and there will be a “Got Swabbed?” drive at Folk Fest.
Both music and philanthropy are passions of DeRoberts’, and being able to unite them is a dream come true, he said.
“Folk Fest is a culmination of music, art and creative energy that is free and open to everyone to share in the experience and benefit a common cause,” he said.
It was this passion that gave Jamie Hankins, DeRoberts’ best friend and a junior studying finance, the idea to reach out to some of DeRoberts’ favorite musicians.
While studying in Spain, Hankins managed to contact Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros and planned a surprise hospital visit for DeRoberts, which happened to be the same day as his new transplant.
“After his first transplant failed and things were looking grim, I was feeling like I couldn’t do anything,” Hankins said. “They (Edward Sharpe) went way above and beyond my original idea and played him a private set and gave him a bunch of gifts. … And the relationship with them has been amazing.”
DeRoberts credits Hankins and Patricia Weitsman, OU’s director of war and peace studies and a political science professor, as crutches who have helped him through his recovery.
Weitsman received a bone marrow transplant in 2011 to help battle myelodysplastic syndrome, formerly known as preleukemia.
It was through Dr. William Blum, their mutual doctor, that Weitsman and DeRoberts first met.
“He wanted to introduce the two of us because Haden was going to be coming back to school very soon after the transplant, and he thought it would be a good idea for Haden to have a resource on campus,” Weitsman said.
When DeRoberts returned to school in the spring, they met every Tuesday morning for breakfast at Casa Nueva, 6 W. State St.
“It was my mission to try to fatten him up,” Weitsman said. “We were able to carve out time and meet up every week.”
But after almost two years in remission, Weistman relapsed this summer and is on medical leave, so they are unable to meet every week.
“I was here to help Haden just as much as he was there to help me, and he is an incredible man,” she said. “Whenever I feel discouraged, I think of him and what he’s been through, and it lifts my heart and inspires me every day.”
ao007510@ohiou.edu
@thisisjelli
