By LAUREN GROVER
Tyler Morning Telegraph
FLINT - It was an invite-only party Friday night boasting horse rides, a carousel, free lip-smacking hamburgers and live music for dozens of East Texas kids who share a legacy of kicking cancer.
For the 12th year, Li'l Wranglers, the first event of the Cattle Barons Gala, honored area pediatric cancer patients age 2 to 18 with an unforgettable night of fun and prizes.
For most, whether still in the throes of chemotherapy or newly cancer free, it was a hiatus from tedious recuperation.
Sunshine poured into the inflatable jumping room where 5-year-old Briana McPhearson smiled and laughed, flopping on her stomach in a yellow dress. A rare cancerous tumor led doctors to remove Briana's right kidney after radiation and chemotherapy when she was 3 - but dealing with her disease seems to have just started, says her caretakers and grandparents Dale and Liz Boxberger of Gresham.
"She's having a hard time right now," Mrs. Boxberger said. "It's like it's all caught up with her. It's a form of post-traumatic stress."
A retired nurse, Mrs. Boxberger said Briana's father died in fall 2007. But despite heartache and months of painful illness, Briana starts kindergarten in August.
"She's very lucky," she said. "We're so fortunate to have the medical community we have here."
More than 100 children and parents partied in the shade under a huge tent at Threlkeld Farm,
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