DECATUR - Anna Smith, 7, wants to be a veterinarian or a police officer when she grows up. But just four years ago, her body was riddled with cancer and her family didn't know if she would beat the disease. In the girl's intense, ice-blue eyes linger the profound depth and wisdom she cultivated from fighting for her life at a young age. Anna is a survivor.

Two years old at the time, she began having achy, flulike symptoms while staying at her grandparents' home one November. Her mom, Suzy Smith, 47, was away in St. Louis, furthering her education as a nurse when the family's world slowed to an imperceptible crawl.

"My dad said one day she got up and she said, 'Grandpa,' and she just fell," Smith said. "She couldn't stand."

Smith hurried home, and after a series of tests, Anna was diagnosed with Burkitt's lymphoma.

Anna's mother said she experienced denial at first and then asked herself, "OK, how am I going to pay for this? I'll sell everything I have just to keep her."

Her answer came in the form of a lifeline extended to the family by the existence of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. Anna and her mom took a jet from the hospital's Midwest Affiliate in Peoria and stayed at St. Jude from December to mid-June of that year. Anna's recent annual physical marked four years cancer-free.

During their time at St. Jude, Smith didn't worry about medical bills, finding a place to live or even how she would afford meals. The hospital, funded largely by donations, took care of everything, she said.

"I'm still real good friends with a lot of the people that work there because they were my family," Smith said.

Anna remembers many things about St. Jude: dogs that came to visit the children, a bounce house and friends to talk to. But the girl, just a toddler at the time, also remembers medicine, chemotherapy and having a double Hickman catheter in her chest.

Smith recently received information that Anna's treatments at the hospital would have cost more than $500,000. But Smith, a single mother, has never seen a medical bill from the hospital. No one is turned away because of inability to pay.

"You just got hope," she said of St. Jude.

Every summer, runners from all over the state and beyond hit the pavement to help St. Jude give the families of children battling catastrophic illnesses that same sense of hope.

Midwest teams from as far away as St. Louis, Chicago and Memphis organize relay runs into Peoria each August to raise money for the hospital and to help kick off the annual St. Jude Telethon.

The Decatur team, coordinated by Jim Yagen, 58, has been participating in the 90-mile relay since 1999, when representatives from St. Jude made a presentation to the Decatur Running Club, of which he was a member.

"Once you get to know what they do, it's really a great cause," he said.

On Aug. 2, nine runners and a handful of volunteers met on the north side of town in the Wal-Mart parking lot for their 1:30 a.m. sendoff.

"Over the years, it's mainly people that want to support St. Jude," Yagen said of the group that takes off each summer from the parking lot, their orange vests disappearing into the night.

Last year, the group raised $22,500 for the hospital.

"We're not going to do as well, but we're still trying," Yagen said of this year's goal, adding that the team will accept donations through the middle of September. "We haven't stopped."

Leif Mueller, 19, and his mom, Kathy Mueller, 46, ran this year for the second time. Their first run was when Leif was just 13. Mueller had a friend who was treated for Wilms tumor at St. Jude.

"I'd never run more than 2 miles, and I ran 18 miles that day," he said.

He read about this year's run in the newspaper just a week before it was set to take place, and he and his mom made the decision to participate again.

"You actually see these families that have been going through all of this," Kathy Mueller said of the crowds that gather in the Peoria Civic Center to greet the runners. "It really brings it down to how these people put their lives on hold for their family members who are sick."

Along the way, Yagen pumps the runners' music of choice through speakers on the top of the van. Mueller said she planned to run to ABBA tunes this year. Last time, she listened to selections from the musical "Grease."

"You have your support basically rolling along with you," Yagen said of the police escorts and the vans that carry runners between their turns on the road.

First-time run participant Sharron Thornton, 45, is a longtime runner, but she said it was the cause that made her want to participate.

"I said yes immediately," she said. "I didn't even think about it."

As her teenage daughter and some friends saw her off, Thornton said she was most looking forward to the powerful experience of running into the telethon with the other relay teams.

Seeing former St. Jude patients who have grown up and done extraordinary things with their lives inspires Yagen to stay involved year after year.

Smith keeps a photo in her wallet of Anna and her fraternal twin sister, Grace, taken soon after Anna's return from St. Jude. The girls, one just beginning to grow duck fluff blonde hair again, are all smiles. Her face full of hope and innocence, Anna is a living reminder of the impact the hospital has on children and their families.

The opportunity to help give future St. Jude patients that same hope is the reason Smith said she so ardently supports the runners and others who donate to the hospital.

"If people did not come ahead of us, I wouldn't have her," Smith said.

agetsinger@herald-review.com|421-6968