Christian

My 3 year old boy Christian came into this world fighting. At almost 12 pounds, Christian was born with shoulder dystocia, wasn't breathing and had 4 broken ribs. 

After the trauma of coming into this world Christian was deemed a perfect, healthy boy! Christian was a healthy boy; an energetic boy that we nicknamed our “ball of fire.” He then got Lyme disease when he was 2 years of age. Every night he would sweat profusely. So bad that I would change his clothing and sheets 2-3 times a night. After 2 rounds of antibiotics — he again was back to being our healthy boy.

Near Christmas(2012), Christian got both a virus and then pneumonia on top of that. It cleared up but,Christian just wasn't back to his normal spunky charismatic self. So I took him to the pediatrician once again.He was pale as a ghost & his energy level was low.  

The doctor said that he was fine and it looked like he was getting over a virus. I left there shaking my head because I knew there was something wrong. A mother just knows.? Between Thursday and Monday, Christian had 4 bloody noses, little red pinhead blood like dots all over his body, little blood blisters on the inside of his mouth and was still pale. I was just told to monitor him.Thank God I was persistent and listened to my gut instead! 

I rushed him back to the pediatrician and told them to take a complete blood count. Christian’s blood counts were bad. Platelets were low, white blood counts were extremely high and the red blood count was very low. 

With the fear on my son's trusted pediatrician's face, the first thing that came out of my mouth was "does my baby have cancer!" I couldn't even breathe. I went into panic mode but still smiling at Christian with tears running down my face. We learned that Christian has ALL – a form of Leukemia.  

I can't believe I'm here. But he's here and alive and THAT is a BLESSING!? Three long months have passed since he got diagnosed. We have 3 years of chemotherapy ahead of us and are taking it one day at a time. Our goal - to keep our baby cancer-free and to have a long, happy, healthy, beautiful life. That's all a mommy, a daddy and a big brother can ever ask for.