My Daughter-in-law tells Levi's story best:
Levi’s name means “joined in harmony”. As the middle of three boys, there’s not always much harmony guaranteed around our house but he is definitely one who unites his family and friends.
He loves life so much, finding beauty, laughter, and enjoyment in little things around us. He especially loves his brothers, Mason (10) and Sawyer (5), who are his best friends. On June 30, 2020, Levi was diagnosed with high risk T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, or T-Cell ALL. His symptoms presented as excessive bruising on his legs, arms, and back, with petechiae around the eyes and cheeks. We initially attributed the bruises to roughhousing with his brothers and the petechiae looked like maybe he had a bit too much sun. We decided to get Levi checked out by his pediatrician just in case. After all, we didn’t know anyone with leukemia, how could cancer happen to us? But nothing could explain away the doctor’s concern during our first tele-health appointment.
24 hours later, Levi was starting the fight of his life, surrounded by the loudest and proudest community support around, inspired to show up for our son and our family. We’ve had ups and downs looking back over the last year. Levi came down with severe pancreatitis as a side effect of PEG-Asparaginase, he’s fought multiple neutropenic fevers, and even contracted Covid-19 in October 2020, presumably from our in and out hospital visits for treatment. But through it all Levi has united us with his smile, his laughter, and his will to fight.
Levi has inspired blood drives in the community, charitable donations to Child Life programs, and cancer research organizations and so much more. We know he is destined for great things and we are so very proud of him. We are so grateful to the healthcare team at Duke Children’s, our family and friends, our community, the strangers who have been so kind, and ultimately God for giving us the chance to be together each and every day.
Levi is now in remission and he completed his treatment in November 2022. He is doing well and his prognosis is good, steadying us for whatever comes next. We have our eyes set on November 2025 when he will become a “survivor” and his chance of getting leukemia again is the same as you and me.
