Photo by Jessica Stewart / St. Joseph News-Press

Maycee Gardner, 8, was recently diagnosed with two benign brain tumors. According to Maycee’s mom, Cyndee, Maycee’s tumors were Cameron’s 13th and 14th diagnosed within the past year.

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CAMERON, Mo. — Cyndee Gardner’s day started out bad.

She attended the funeral of a co-worker and friend who died from brain tumor-related complications.

Then her day got worse.

In the afternoon, she took her soon-to-be third-grade daughter to the doctor.

“I just had this feeling that she was gonna be next,” Ms. Gardner said, shaking her head about her daughter Maycee.

Her feeling was right. Maycee has not one, but two brain tumors. If the dime and half-dime size masses behind her greenish-blue eyes grow within the next three months, the family will face the potentially life-threatening task of removing part of the 8-year-old’s brain.

Some residents in Cameron, Mo., and surrounding towns feel like days such as Ms. Gardner’s May 30 are becoming terrifyingly common.

In Cameron, an eight-stoplight town that graduates about 100 high schoolers a year, about everybody seems to know of at least somebody who has a brain tumor.

While an answer to the mystery could ease the pain and panic, state officials investigating the reported cases do not have promising news.

The officials might not be able to determine whether there are more brain tumors than normal in this Northwest Missouri area. Even if they do conclude that more tumors than usual exist, pinpointing the “why” factor would be rare, said Dr. Jeannette Jackson-Thompson, operations director for the Missouri Cancer Registry.

“You can have a cluster purely by chance. I know no one wants to hear that,” Dr. Jackson-Thompson said. “It is far too early to draw conclusions. But when people are afraid, they want you to do what you can as soon as you can.”

The unknowns and number affected multiplies Bill Kemper’s heartache. Karen Kemper, the friend and co-worker whom Ms. Gardner lost, was Mr. Kemper’s wife.

As if losing his partner of 20 years and mother to his daughters less than a month and a half ago isn’t enough, the Cameron native worries about his tumor-inflicted friends and searches for a cause to what he sees as a community problem.

“With everything going on, it makes it hard to come in here and run a business every day,” he said inside his car dealership, his glazed-over eyes staring out the front glass.

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A group of local residents know about a dozen Cameron people who have been diagnosed with brain tumors in the past year.

The exact number of reported brain tumors in current and past residents of Cameron and surrounding communities depends on whom you ask. Nanci Gonder, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said the department hasn’t received much more than 20 reports, while Rep. Jim Guest, R-King City, says his office alone has given the state department more than 43 reports he collected from individuals.

A majority of the reports are from present and past residents of Cameron — a town of about 9,800 (including the about 3,200 prison population).

Residents worry that the number of reported tumors — all diagnosed in recent years — far exceeds normal rates.

About one in every 10,000 people receives a brain tumor diagnosis each year, according to the American Brain Tumor Association.

As part of the state investigation, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources tested Cameron’s water and deemed it safe.

The next step: DNR will test the site of a former insulation plant that closed more than 25 years ago — Rockwool Industries.

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Last fall, Karen Kemper thought she had an ear infection. It felt like water was trapped in her ear. She went to the doctor and got some antibiotics.

Also in the fall, one of Mr. Kemper’s childhood friends in Cameron was diagnosed with a brain tumor. A week or two after his friend had surgery to remove the tumor, one of the Kempers’ friends from church was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Ms. Kemper’s ear kept bothering her. This spring, she had an MRI. The fashionable, scrapbook-loving, high-energy fourth-grade teacher had a benign tumor the size of a small egg behind her ear, near her brain stem.

Mr. Kemper had noticed she was dropping things more than usual but had never said anything.

One of the Kempers’ former neighborhood friends also received a tumor diagnosis.

“I started to think, ‘Yeah, we do have a problem here. It’s just too many in a small area,’” Mr. Kemper said.

News of more tumors followed.

A whirlwind of three surgeries in three weeks included a bleed that filled the cavity left behind from the removal of most of Ms. Kemper’s tumor. The result was a blood clot, which led to a stroke.

It all happened so fast.

One of the last hopeful signs was the last time Ms. Kemper squeezed her husband’s hand. Days later, on May 26, she was gone. She would have turned 45 today.

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Maycee sprinted down her stairs to show off the MRI photos of her brain tumors.

“Look, there’s the big one!” she proudly pointed, like a girl showing off her dolls.

She knew Ms. Kemper from school, but Maycee hasn’t put together that she has what killed Ms. Kemper.

Maycee has muscular dystrophy and epilepsy. She had a clean MRI one year ago.

Her handwriting worsened this past year, and she started wetting the bed — both symptoms of a brain tumor. Ms. Gardner didn’t think much of it, until she had a bad seizure while on medication late this spring.

The two tumors are on her right frontal lobe — an area that powers imagination and problem solving.

The official diagnosis came a week and a half ago. A doctor said to come back in three months. If the tumors are bigger then, they’ll remove them — something they don’t want to do unless they have to, considering the damage that could be done.

Until then, Maycee will just keep packing in as many days at the swimming pool as possible.

Ms. Gardner knows some in the community would prefer the tumor details stay quiet. It’s bad for the town’s image and for business, they say.

Ms. Gardner disagrees.

“If we’ve got a problem in town, we need to fix it,” she said.

Nancy Hull can be reached at nancyhull@npgco.com.