Cancer survivor and world-champion Irish dancer raises money for hospital that saved her life

Megan Stuart, 20, of Minneapolis, shares how she is leveraging her recent world championship win in Irish dancing to raise money for pediatric cancer patients.

After fighting for her life twice, Megan Stuart, 20, is using a personal victory as a springboard for giving back to the hospital that saved her.

The Minneapolis woman has already faced her share of challenges.

Stuart and her twin brother were born eight weeks early. Then, at just 4 months old, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, she said. 

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Years later, just as she was on the verge of achieving her life's goal in Irish dancing, the COVID pandemic shut down her favorite sport. 

Even so, in an on-camera interview with Fox News Digital, Stuart referred to herself a number of times as "lucky." (See the video at the top of this article.)

Megan Stuart, 20, of Minneapolis, was recently crowned world champion at the 2024 CLRG World Championships of Irish dance, right. She's using her win to raise money for the cancer charity that helped her as an infant, left.  (Courtesy Megan Stuart/Shamrock Photography)

She was lucky, she said, that Children's Minnesota — the hospital where she and her brother spent 40 days in the NICU after their premature birth — had the facilities and know-how to treat an infant with stage 3 neuroblastoma. 

And now she is lucky, she added, that she's been given a platform to give back to it.

After nearly a decade of attempts and close finishes, Stuart was crowned the world champion in Irish dance last March at the CLRG World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. The CLRG is the world's largest and oldest Irish dance governing body.

"I think it would