Inspirational Stories

Blake was recently diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), and is now in interim maintenance.

It all started with unexpected wrist and ​leg pain that turned into three years worth of treatments and procedures. We were told he was anemic so we took him in for iron supplements. He then got very constipated and had terrible side and tummy pains, which led us back into the ER. They gave us laxatives and sent us home.

Weeks later, his leg pain progressively got worse, and he was limping. By the end of December 2014, he wasn't wanting to walk at all. He would crawl and scoot across the floor. At that point, I knew something more was wrong but cancer was the furthest thing from my mind. 

On January 6, 2015, Blake stopped walking all together, his legs wouldn't function anymore. He didn't want to walk, nor could he., He tried to get around just army crawling and had me completely worried, so we took him back to his pediatrician. Once she saw the pain he was in when she tried to make him walk, she sent us directly to the ER with a piece of paper that listed about 15 different blood tests and ultrasounds/x-rays, I was terrified for my life.

We got in right away and they ran tests for EIGHT loooooong miserable hours, did an ultrasound of his hip and thighs, and took an x-ray of his heart/chest and his legs. Once they got blood results back, they told us all of his blood counts had dropped into a dangerous level, and we had to get him up to the hematology/oncology floor for a blood transfusion right away. A blood specialist ran more tests the next morning, did a bone marrow aspiration (BMA) and then proceeded to tell us he had pre-B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Times are hard, but my little guy always ends up with a smile back on his face. He's so tough and such a fighter! He's on two chemotherapy regimenss every 10 days -- vincristine and methotrexate. I want to raise awareness and find a cure for ALL blood cancers and disorders, especially childhood cancers!