Josh and Amy Smith thought their son, Jake, had beaten cancer.  Jake was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a brain tumor, at age 5 and received treatment at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.

"In May 2000, he finished his treatment and the MRIs looked great. We were going home," Josh Smith said. "For the next seven to eight years, Jake was a normal boy."  But four days before Christmas 2006, the Smiths were told that a secondary tumor had appeared. Jake, now 13, was headed back to St. Jude.

"It was pretty devastating," said Smith, who lives in Winchester, Ill., and has an aunt, Betty Smith, who lives in Quincy, Ill.  "The last month has been very, very hard on all of us," he said. "We found out we've got to do this again. I told Jake, 'You're going to have to have brain surgery again, radiation again, chemotherapy again.' He said, 'Dad, we did it once, we can do it again.' That's what's kept us going, Jake's courage."

Jake's first brain tumor was diagnosed in September 1999.  "He'd been having back problems for four to six weeks and we decided to get an MRI," Smith said. "We thought it was going to show us where a fracture was."

But something wasn't right on the MRI.

The next morning, the family met with an oncologist at St. John's Hospital in Springfield, Ill., who said Jake had a medulloblastoma, a brain tumor, and it had spread to his spine.  "They gave us no hope. They said they didn't know how to treat it," Smith said. "But the doctor said we may have an option to go to St. Jude, that it would be the best place for that." The ambulance ride from Springfield to Memphis was pretty rough because Jake was in so much pain, but Smith recalls that about half-way there, Jake felt a bit better and even talked the ambulance driver into stopping at McDonald's for a cheeseburger.

The next day, they met with a doctor at LeBonheur Children's Medical Center in Memphis, who explained to Jake what was wrong and that he needed surgery.  The operation lasted five to six hours and Jake spent the next few nights in intensive care. He then went to St. Jude, where he had six weeks of radiation, a month off and then four months of chemotherapy.  "Dr. Thompson was his first doctor at St. Jude, and he always did something to make Jake smile," Smith recalls. "He was always quick with a joke. And when things got hard, he was always there to talk to you.  "The treatment is world class," he added. "We would not have wanted to be anywhere else."

The treatment worked, and Jake and his family went back to their lives.

Jake played sports and enjoyed being a kid. The Smiths also added to the family - they now have son, Noah, 3, and daughter, Emma, 2.  They weren't prepared for the news they received in December.  But the Smiths know they're in the best place they can be. They're putting their faith in the St. Jude doctors, they're relying on the support of family and friends, and they're praying that Jake once again will beat this dreadful disease.  "It's hard telling what's going to happen this time," Smith said. "But we might not have had the seven to eight years we had with Jake. That's because of St. Jude."

Smith says his family is grateful to all those who make donations to the hospital and recently thanked a group of people involved in the St. Jude Runs, a major fundraiser for the hospital.

"Without that, I don't know what would happen with Jake," he said. "And Jake's just one story. There are tons of them walking through the halls over there."