Students at Newcastle High School are planning their annual STRUT (Students, Teachers and Racers United Together) Week for 2023, and they have announced that Newcastle resident Nicole Gaither has been selected as the STRUT Week recipient.
This year, they used an application process to select the STRUT Week recipient, accepting applications through Google forms starting December 30, 2022 and the deadline to apply was February 14, 2023. After the deadline, they gathered the applications and presented them to an unbiased committee of teachers and administrators. After the presentation, the committee discussed, then voted to select the 2023 recipient.
••• The STRUT Week committee selected Nicole Gaither as our 2023 STRUT Week recipient. Nicole is an extremely deserving recipient. Nicole and her family moved to Newcastle over six years ago. Nicole has three children, one of which (Lyla) is a freshman at Newcastle High School. On August 20, 2021 Nicole received a call that flipped her life upside down. She had officially been diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of thyroid cancer called Poorly Differentiated Thyroid Carcinoma (PDTC.)
Since then, she has undergone four major surgeries, several rounds of radiation, multiple hospital stays, and now takes a daily chemo pill, plus an injection and an infusion every three weeks to try and slow the growth of the multiple tumors that are now growing throughout her body. At last count, Nicole had cancer in nine different areas of her body.
Nicole has been confined to a wheelchair or electric scooter for the last 16 months as one of her larger tumors was in her femur and hip area. This caused her to have a total hip and femur replacement last December. Her cancer is considered stage 4 and terminal. Due to her cancer being extremely rare, she travels to MD Anderson in Houston for all treatments.
This has led to several weeks at a time being away from home and having to find the funds for these numerous trips. She also takes medicine and receives treatments that cost over $70,000 per month.
Nicole and her husband are self-employed, and have not been able to work much due to treatments and fatigue. Nicole’s husband has now become her full-time caregiver. Nicole will continue to travel to MD Anderson very often to continue her cancer fight.
She said, “Although I am very sick, I will never give up. I refuse to give in to this horrible disease and will fight it with every ounce of my being. I truly believe that whatever time I have left, God has a plan for me, and I intend to see it through.
“When I was told I was so graciously chosen to be the STRUT Week recipient, I was extremely overwhelmed with emotion. I love the community we live in and am so thankful to be this year’s recipient. The funds raised will not only help with my treatment costs but will also help with travel expenses and daily living.
“Jonathan and I are so very thankful for this opportunity, and we do not take it lightly. Thank you to everyone involved with organizing this year’s STRUT Week as well as anyone who participates. Again, we are very thankful for this community and consider ourselves very blessed.” This year for STRUT Week, the theme is “STRUT into action.” Everything will be comic book-, action figure-themed as we fight for the good in our community. We have a bunch of exciting plans in the works. We are going to include all school sites in STRUT Week events. Each school site will have their own kickoff assembly before STRUT Week and will participate in the same dress up days as the high school students. We are super excited for our entire school district and community to be involved in STRUT Week.
For more information about STRUT Week, check out our website at www.nhsstrutweek. org and follow us on our socials! Our Facebook is NHS STRUT Week and our Instagram is @nhs_strutweek.
