In late January – early February of 2016, when Evan was almost 3.5 years old, he started complaining about his legs hurting. When he first started complaining about it we thought he had growing pains and gave him Tylenol. The pain was not consistent, and he go days in a row when there was no pain. 

 After a couple of weeks and the pain becoming more regular, we took him to the pediatrician to be checked and everything seemed normal. His white count was off a little bit but nothing to be concerned about.   

Over the next month, we saw the pediatrician several times (who always did blood work) and a pediatric orthopedic doctor. Several x-rays of both legs were taken, and they thought that he had a spiral fracture on the tibia that was not showing on the x-rays, so they gave him a walking boot to wear and this seemed to help for about a week.  

On April 25, 2016 we took one last trip to the pediatrician's office and stressed that something was seriously wrong with our son. He could hardly stand up or walk and when he did, his legs quivered terribly. He complained when you touched him anywhere saying that it hurt. He would not play and could not walk, run, jump or even stand up to pee. He could not stand on his own after baths. We needed a diagnosis, Evan needed a diagnosis, something had to happen to help our son. This time, the blood work showed serious problems, not only a low white count, but low platelets and hemoglobin. This day our pediatrician told us he thought our son had leukemia and that we needed to go to Brenner Children’s Hospital immediately and that the children’s oncology department would be expecting us.   

We met with one of the oncologists in the emergency room and he reviewed the blood work and ordered additional testing. He could not conclude with 100% certainty that it was leukemia and needed to do a bone marrow biopsy the next morning to be certain. We went home that night to try to rest and pack up the family for a long stay at Brenner’s (if the biopsy showed leukemia). We arrived early at the hospital the next morning and they did the biopsy. A couple hours later the results were in and on April 26, 2016, Evan was officially diagnosed with Leukemia. We found out later the same day that he had Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Even though you want answers and you have tried to prepare for the diagnosis, nothing can ever prepare you for being told that your child has a potentially terminal illness. 

 Within hours of the diagnosis, he was in surgery getting a spinal tap done and a port-a- cath put in to more easily administer chemotherapy. Chemotherapy started that day and we spent several days in the hospital.

Evan started off by going through about 7 months of intense chemotherapy and we finally reached the maintenance phase of treatment in January of 2017 and will continue maintenance until June of 2019. 

The team of doctors and nurses in the children’s oncology group at Brenner Children’s Hospital have been wonderful to Evan and our family. They love and care for our son and we are eternally grateful, and we have been blown away by the care they provide.

Evan is in remission and has been since May of 2016. We pray that he continues to be and that he will be cured in June of 2019. Evan can now stand, walk, run, jump, ride bikes and do all the things that he could not do before. If you met Evan, you would never know that he is being treated for cancer. He goes to Brenner’s every month to have his port flushed and have blood work done and he goes quarterly for lumbar punctures and intravenous chemotherapy. In between hospital visits, he gets blood counts regularly and takes oral chemotherapy daily, along with some other medications. Evan appears to be a perfectly healthy “normal” little boy, but in our minds, he is not just a “normal” little boy, he is a super hero!