Rep. James Teeple, R-Johns Island, and his daughter Kinsey Teeple at St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis amid her cancer battle. (Photo courtesy of James Teeple)
COLUMBIA — A cancer diagnosis in 2021 left James and Janelle Teeple needing a miracle.
Their 3½-year-old daughter had been struggling with balance issues the previous few days. The Johns Island couple, who own a pair of faith-based childcare centers, initially suspected an inner-ear infection. But a trip to the doctor the previous day had ruled that out.
At the hospital, doctors found a mass they identified as a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) brain tumor, a deadly, aggressive form of brain cancer found in about 300 children in the U.S. annually.
Doctors estimated Kinsey Teeple, the younger of the Teeples’ two children, had 12 months to live without treatment and 18 if they did chemotherapy and radiation.
In that moment, James Teeple said his heart felt like it weighed 1,000 pounds.
“The thoughts start running through your mind,” he said. “You’re never going to walk her down the aisle. You’re never going to meet her prom date, and she’s never going to have kids.”
Praying for guidance, James Teeple said he had a nagging feeling to contact St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The hospital that treats childhood cancers and other deadly diseases has eight affiliates nationwide. None are in South Carolina.
Luckily, Kinsey qualified for a trial at the hospital’s Memphis headquarters. There, the doctors told the Teeples their daughter had been misdiagnosed.
She had an embryonal tumor with multilayered rosettes (ETMR), another highly aggressive pediatric brain cancer, as well as a pair of miniscule tumors on her spine.
Doctors gave her a 4% chance of survival, her father said.
“When you go from zero to 4%, there’s hope, and hope moves mountains,” James Teeple said.
Kinsey was first admitted to St. Jude’s on Sept. 8, 2021, a week after her parents received the devastating prognosis.
A brain surgery, 30 doses of radiation and four rounds of chemotherapy eliminated all evidence of cancer. The Teeples, who lived in Memphis during her treatment, brought Kinsey home in April 2022, days before her fourth birthday.
Today, Kinsey is 6 years old and living a normal childhood. She is in first grade, participates in gymnastics and loves animals.
“When it got bad, I couldn’t tell if she was awake or not,” James Teeple said. “To be told you are going to lose your child and then get them back is the biggest blessing you could ever have.”
Since his daughter’s battle, the 45-year-old freshman state House representative has been advocating for a St. Jude’s partnership in the state.
Both the House and Senate have adopted identical resolutions this session encouraging St. Jude’s to establish an affiliate in South Carolina.
Affiliate programs involve a “network of clinics, hospitals, and universities that work closely with St. Jude to provide expert, compassionate care and treatment closer to a patient’s home, allowing families to take part in clinical trials and receive follow-up and supportive care,” read the resolutions.
The idea being pursued is a partnership with the Medical University of South Carolina, which already has a 250-bed children’s hospital in Charleston.
The hospital is “in early stages of exploring a relationship with St. Jude’s,” a spokesperson told the SC Daily Gazette in a statement, declining to say more.
A group of lawmakers and representatives from MUSC are traveling to Memphis next week to further discuss the possibility.
According to Teeple, an affiliate in South Carolina would come at no cost to taxpayers.
‘They will be able to get world class care’
Teeple estimated his daughter received over $1 million worth of cancer treatment. Yet, he paid nothing out of pocket. St. Jude charges insurance companies but collects nothing additional from families.
The hospital relies largely on donations to fund its more than $2 billion operation.
“If we can bring that clinic here, all the underprivileged kids, the ones where their parents feel like they have no option … they will be able to go to a place with world-class care,” said Teeple, who represents southern Charleston County, as well as Edisto Beach in Colleton County.
He first contacted the children’s hospital about coming to South Carolina within months of his daughter’s return home.
Getting nowhere with his request, he reached out to his legislator, then-Rep. Matt Leber, who also lives on Johns Island.
They first met in 2022 when Leber knocked on his door while campaigning and quickly bonded over having daughters with the same name.
“We’re probably best friends at this point,” Leber said.
Leber shared the Teeples’ story with House Speaker Murrell Smith, who wrote a letter in November 2023 to St. Jude’s endorsing the idea. (Smith, R-Sumter, declined to talk to the SC Daily Gazette about it, referring all questions to Teeple, as it’s his passion.)
Daddy’s campaign manager
Smith’s letter made some headway with St. Jude, which sparked an idea, Teeple said.
“I thought ‘Well, they pick up the phone for politicians. I think I need to run for office,’” he said.
At the same time Teeple was contemplating a run for the Statehouse, Leber was plotting a move from the House to the Senate. Leber’s election to the House in 2022 had flipped a seat to the GOP that had been held by a Black Democrat since 1974. Democrats were looking to take it back.
Teeple went door-to-door around the 116th District with his daughter as his partner. He even bought her a jacket that read “Daddy’s Campaign Manager.”
The two drove a golf cart to so many houses that Teeple lost count.
“She’d say, ‘Daddy I want to do this one,’” Teeple said.
It wasn’t long before Teeple figured out why his daughter was eager to knock on the door of specific homes.
“She wanted to go to a door where they might have a puppy,” Teeple said with a slight chuckle.
In November, Teeple won by less than 3 percentage points over Charlie Murray, the brother of former Rep. Chardale Murray, the freshman legislator Leber defeated in 2022 and current Hollywood mayor.
With that, Teeple’s political career began. But the 45-year-old says he’s not staying in politics; his primary goal is to bring St. Jude’s to South Carolina.
“I won’t be doing this 10 years from now,” he said about being a legislator.
Support from both parties
At a Senate Medical Affairs subcommittee meeting last month, Teeple let his daughter do the talking as he teared up.
St. Jude saved her life, she told senators, so please bring St. Jude to South Carolina to help other children.
“The only way you can get into a St. Jude program is if they accept you in some sort of experimental situation, or if you live close to a clinic,” Leber told the full committee before it advanced the resolution to the floor.
“They are on the cutting edge,” he said.
Every senator has signed on as a co-sponsor. (The House resolution skipped the committee process altogether. It too is co-sponsored by the entire chamber.)
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Democrat or Republican,” Teeple said. “I’ve had quite a few of the folks on the Dem side that have come up and said, ‘Anything you need for this, you let me know.’
“You can tell it’s heartfelt,” he added.
The nearest St. Jude affiliates are in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Johnson City, Tennessee.
That trek may not be burdensome for South Carolinians near the North Carolina or Tennessee border. But for Teeple and his constituents in the Lowcountry, he said, that commute could be impossible.
Establishing an affiliate in South Carolina would be the fulfillment of a promise James Teeple made to his daughter nearly three years ago.
“I made a commitment to Kinsey that I would fight until the day I died, or the day she cut the ribbon to bring St. Jude to South Carolina,” Teeple said. “So that story didn’t end with her, and we are able to save the lives of more children with cancer.”