Family Loses Battle; Eight-Year-Old With Brain Tumor Dies

Jeremiah Solis had battled a brain tumor for more than a year.

An eight-year-old with a brain tumor died Tuesday following a desperate plea for help from his mother.

Jeremiah Solis, formerly of Haverhill, died at his home in Manchester, N.H. Money raised at a GoFundMe website will now be used to help pay funeral and burial, a family spokesperson said. As WHAV reported this week, he had been battling a rare form of brain cancer for a year and three months. A recent surge of the cancer’s growth left him blind and unable to speak.

Jeremiah wasn’t the only cancer victim in the family. His mother, Elicia Cruzita Solis, is also a cancer survivor, being diagnosed with what was thought to be a terminal case when she was only 24. She was stricken again in 2015 with breast cancer and then gastric cancer. Her 11-year-old daughter Jarisma succumbed to bone cancer 10 years ago this past May.

Earlier this week, Solis and her husband Jerry were calling every neurologist in the country, asking to try something to save Jeremiah.

“All Massachusetts hospitals have exhausted treatments for him, and she is trying to find one to use some sort of experimental drug to save his life. That is their only hope,” said Nancy Jones, who met Solis while they both were in kindergarten at Tilton School. The family had hoped to find advanced treatment in Florida and California.

Visiting hours take place Thursday, Nov. 3, from 2 to 5 p.m., at Phaneuf Funeral Home 243 Hanover St., Manchester, N.H. Services follow at 5 p.m. Burial takes place Friday, 10 a.m., at

Mount Calvary Cemetery, 474 Goffstown Road. Contributions may be made online at gofundme.com/jeremiahstrong.