The first time Parker Leuther got on a roller coaster at 10 years old, he was facing down his massive fear of heights.
His father, Brad, convinced Parker to try Outlaw Run at Silver Dollar City by offering to buy him lunch.
“When he was 7 or 8, I couldn’t even get him on a Ferris wheel,” Brad said. “He was petrified, just wouldn’t have anything to do with any kind of height.”
But that day, Parker agreed to try. The ride starts with a slow climb, hits a big drop right away and ends with back-to-back barrel roll inversions. Just like that, he was hooked.
“It just kind of clicked,” Parker said. “I liked the ride, all of the elements, and I wouldn’t mind having a career designing or building roller coasters. It’s something that interests me.”
As an offensive and defensive lineman at Fulton High School, Parker, now 14, receives the same thrill from making tackles or running his blocking assignment out of bounds. Brad remembers flag football games where Parker wasn’t trying to tackle, but his size would bowl opponents over anyway.
“In tackle, I’ve literally seen him pick kids up over his shoulder, run them five or 10 yards back and then tackle them,” Brad said. “It’s awesome seeing that energy and willpower out on the field.”
Parker is a quiet kid who refined his strength playing with three younger brothers — Cruz, Nash and Axle — and generally being the biggest kid on his youth football teams.
And when he needed it most, love and support from his family, physical fitness from football and the confidence to face his fears helped Parker overcome something far more terrifying than any roller coaster: Cancer.
“We were out celebrating a family milestone at Dairy Queen, I was nine months pregnant,” his mom, Emily, said. “We got in the truck to drive home, and that moment is when I got the phone call. We had two hours to get to the hospital, and our life changed.”
Parker caught the flu in February of 2024 and didn’t rebound like a healthy teenager, so Emily, a nurse, and his pediatrician kept an eye on him. When agonizing stomach pains hit Parker two months later, Emily took him to urgent care for a CT scan and bloodwork. She worried it was something serious and wanted as much information as possible.
Tests showed signs that his bone marrow was creating deformed red and white blood cells, a condition called acute myeloid leukemia, or AML. His oncologists and pathologists at MU Health Care’s Children’s Hospital confirmed the diagnosis.
“Most parents would probably attest that we’d go to the ends of the world for our kids,” Brad said. “Emily and I wanted proof that MU Health Care was where we needed to stay, for Parker and our family. After we talked with the doctors, we never looked back.”
Children’s Hospital is a member of the Children’s Oncology Group, a worldwide research network that sets the standard for children’s cancer care. It means doctors here provide the same standardized care for pediatric cancers like AML closer to home.
Parker’s cancer is aggressive and weakened his immune system. When healthy, myeloid cells created in the bone marrow develop into red blood cells, which exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide in our bodies, or white blood cells, which fight infections.
AML means these myeloid cells do not take their planned course, multiplying rapidly in the bone marrow and preventing the creation of healthy cells. To meet this aggressive disease, Parker’s care team of pediatric oncologists — Barbara Gruner, MD, Tyler Severance, MD, and Altaf Jamil, MD — wanted to start chemotherapy right away.
“The entire family was in shock,” Gruner said. “Thankfully, Parker was in excellent physical condition, and being 40 minutes away in Fulton helped minimize the disruptions that a cancer diagnosis and treatment have on a family.”
Ten days after Parker was admitted to Children’s Hospital, Emily gave birth to Axle, the fourth boy of the family.
“Our theme when we were in the hospital was, ‘Life’s a roller coaster ride,’ because every day was different,” Emily said. “When I had Axle, I felt like I should be happy about a new life, but at the same time, I’m potentially losing a life. My emotions were everywhere.”
She wasn’t the only one scared.
“I was afraid of dying,” Parker said. “I tried to make the most of it because we all end up dying eventually.”
Parker’s body responded very well to the first two rounds of chemotherapy. Technically, he was in remission, but he had three more rounds to complete before he could officially ring his bell. And because chemo had reduced his white blood cell counts, he needed long hospital stays —23 days was the shortest, 56 the longest — for his body’s immune system to recover.
“Infection is a big worry when we treat AML because your immune system is so suppressed, and there’s no trick to speed it up,” Dr. Gruner said. “Parker showed incredible courage during treatment despite his fears.”
All told, Parker was in the hospital for 175 days, with a week home between each round of treatment. Family helped keep him distracted in the hospital, and he doted on Axle.
“Staying in the hospital was frustrating for Parker, but it was amazing how quickly he and Axle bonded,” Gruner said. “When he knew Axle was coming, his whole face would brighten. Axle will probably learn as time goes by that he was a big part of Parker’s healing.”
Parker befriended the nurses who were with him during treatment, bringing in cases of soda and baskets of candy to share. Playing lots of video games relieved his boredom, as did a visit from the Mizzou football team, which helped remind Parker of his goal to play football again after he finished treatment.
“I was glad I could stay at MU Health Care and didn’t have to go to St. Louis,” Parker said. “I had the same nurses every day which helped a lot.”
He struck up a close friendship with former Tiger defensive lineman Attiyah Ellison, and the two even practiced defensive line drills in his hospital room when he had the energy.
“Attiyah and the football team visiting was a huge inspiration to get us through this,” Brad said. “Showing the compassion and care that all of Mizzou is behind you, they’re here to build a long-term relationship and share their personal numbers, made us feel special.”
But there were more twists and turns on this ride just before the finish. Parker got sick as he was recovering from his final round of chemotherapy, and an infection his body could have handled in days with a full-strength immune system instead pushed his body to the brink.
“He was in the ICU for a month and intubated for 13 days,” Emily said. “We didn’t think he was going to make it.”
Expert pediatric doctors and nurses were on hand when Parker needed them to help fight the infection. And when he came out of the ICU, dejected because he couldn’t walk and had missed a chance to go to a Mizzou football game, Axle was there to cheer him up.
As Axle bounced off the hallway walls in his baby walker, Parker found another reason to dig deep during his physical and occupational therapy.
“I got to teach him how to walk, basically, and then he got to teach me how to walk again,” Parker said.
After making a full recovery, Parker and his family took trips to Six Flags and Cedar Point in the summer of 2025, balanced around high school football workouts and regular checkups with his care team in Columbia.
“The doctors and nurses at MU Health Care had technical expertise, but also so much compassion and love throughout the journey,” Brad said. “It's been probably the best life decision I've ever made.”
Parker still hasn’t found a ride that’s too extreme. And with everything he’s been through, it’s no surprise: He is stronger, physically and mentally, than he was that day at Silver Dollar City.
“I still joke around, but I take life a little more seriously,” Parker said. “It helped me learn that I was a strong person and could be a fighter.”