Bald Is Beautiful
On September 11, 2017, our son Luke, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. A trip to the doctor for high fever, cough, and an earache, turned our world upside down. You never think it will happen to your child. Luke received 4 intense rounds of chemotherapy and was hospitalized for over 150 days and received over 60 units of blood and platelets. He took over 16 medications. Luke had a very aggressive type of leukemia, therefore, to decrease the chances of the cancer returning, Luke received a bone marrow transplant on January 22, 2018. He was released from the hospital on February 21, 2018 where we would stay in an apartment within a 20-mile radius of the hospital for 100 days post-transplant. Luke had been in remission since the first round of chemotherapy so I only expected him to continue doing well. However, on April 2, after one of our weekly clinic visits, the doctor called to go over Luke’s lab results. Once again, the words I hoped I would never hear, cancer has returned. His leukemia is back. On April 3, we had a follow-up appointment to figure out the next plan of treatment for Luke. It was very unfortunate that during this appointment we found out that there was no other treatment available to Luke. With Luke’s type of leukemia, it is very aggressive, and they did the most intense treatments possible to cure his leukemia. The only option available was for him to receive weekly chemo and blood infusions to prolong his life maybe a month or two. We took my other son, Jake, out of school 2 months early and went on many adventures and tried to fulfill all that Luke wanted to do with the time he had left. On May 23, after his nose was bleeding for over 24 hours, he was transported by ambulance to Children’s Medical Center. Luke passed away on May 24, 2018.
