Benefit Golf Outing

So here's Jayden's story:

November 17th I came home from work and Jayden was acting like he had hurt his arm, except he hadn't...

He stays with my in-laws in our home all day so I knew where he was at all times and knew nothing could have happened. (my in-laws have been with us for over a year now due to my father-in-laws terminal brain cancer. My mother in law had to quit her job to take care of him, and even though my husband is the youngest of three boys he and I took on the responsibility. I was 5 mo pregnant with our second son at the time also). Back to Jayden, we took him to Akron Children's ER and explained that he was complaining of pain in his arm for no apparent reason.

We were sent home that night with a diagnosis of a sprained shoulder. There was something on the x-ray that showed up but the Dr. was SURE it was just a collection of blood vessels. Well she was wrong, as was our family pediatrician that I took him to the next day because I didn't believe the ER doc. They were both wrong.

It wasn't until January 17th I touched Jayden's arm because it just didn't look right and he pushed me away saying it hurt when I touched his arm. Further examination revealed that this arm was also more dense. I called our pediatrician the next morning and demanded something be done. They consulted a Pediatric orthopedic (Dr. Handler) who took one look at the X-ray and knew something wasn't right. She ordered a second X-ray which was done on the 19th of January, the next morning the Dr's office called me and said an MRI was necessary. We had that done on the 21st of January where Jayden had to be sedated to have done so he wouldn't move. He wasn't in the test 10 minutes when Dr. Handler came out and took us into a little room closed the door and said, "there's a tumor and it looks malignant. It is involving the entire humeral shaft of the bone inside and out including a large fatty tissue tumor surrounding the whole bone. We think it is Ewing's Sarcoma but to be sure we need to send him to main campus for a biopsy."

Of course, you could imagine the next thing that happened was that I walked out of the room and completely lost composure (my husband literally had to hold me up). Then I said to myself, "pull yourself together and give it to God, he is in control." And I did. We went to main campus that night and had the biopsy the next morning that confirmed that it was Ewing's Sarcoma. He had several other scans including a Bone Scan, MRI of the lower arm, X-rays and a PET scan which had to be done at Rainbow Babies, because they thought they saw a second spot.

On January 26th Jayden had a mediport placed under his skin on the right side of his chest to administer Chemotherapy and a double bone marrow biopsy to see if the cancer had spread. We found out later that week that his cancer was localized...PRAISE GOD. We came in to our pediatric oncologist office the following Monday to learn that Jayden had to get rid of ALL of his pets including two kittens (he only had a few months), the new puppy we just got him for Christmas, two frogs and a fish tank. The puppy can come back if we can find someone to train her as she is not allowed to jump nibble or lick him. We started Chemo on February 2nd with the first three drugs and he had a very hard time. He was only supposed to be in for 3 days and stayed 6. Reason being he quit eating completely and lost 3.5lbs, doesn't sound like a lot but at 36 inches tall he only weighted 28 to start with so he looked really bad. He wouldn't eat because he had painful mouth sores from the Chemo. He also had to have a blood transfusion as well. We went home on Sunday and started something called Neupogen shots to help recover his white blood cells. I have to give them to him everyday and they hurt a lot, not only the shot itself, but the medicine burns and it also makes his bones ache.

We had the PET scan that Wednesday which was scary because his ANC or Absolute Neutrophil Count (or white blood cells) was 0 (it was previously 10,700) which meant that his ability to fight infection was now 0 as well, and found out at the scan that his arm had broken from the cancer. We went from Rainbow to Akron Main for a splint and then at 3 am that morning we were back at the Beegly Campus for a fever of 101.6 and stayed 4 days of which he didn't eat anything again and had to be fed through an IV.

He also was unable to have a bowel movement for 11 days straight and had to have an enema, no fun!! Since then, they started him on an appetite stimulant which helped a lot with the not eating. Also since then he had a cast put on his arm which also really helped. We are currently on day number 3 of his second round of Chemo with 2 different drugs and doing great!! He is eating, drinking and using the potty like normal. He is also losing all his hair which bugs him a little. So right now all is well. Thanks again for all you are doing and please keep tabs on his site!!