Liam's Battle with Leukemia
Donation protected
My wife Stephanie and I started off as high school sweethearts. We have been together for 18 years now, and are coming up on our 13th anniversary. We knew early on that planning a family would be a challenge because of Steph being diagnosed with PCOS, which decreases the likelihood of pregnancy. Against these odds, 7 years into our marriage and 3 months into a deployment, our son Liam was blessed into our lives in 2009. He is the major reason we decided to leave the Army after 10 years of service and focus on our home and family. Unfortunately, we have been unsuccessful at providing Liam any siblings, but he finds sisterly love in his relationship with his 10 year-old aunt, Hope.
Liam is one smart cookie. He has a passion for learning. His passion lies with math and science as he loves to tackle problems meant for children at least twice his age. He is learning how to blueprint for inventions, and has three companies he plans to "get running before I'm 18." He also loves solving puzzles and drawing mazes. Whenever he takes interest in a subject, he devours whatever he gets his hands on and tries to find real world use for the knowledge. He's an amazing 6 year old.
He has a kind, generous heart that always looks for chances to give more than he receives--to pay it forward. One of his latest acts of kindness was cutting his long locks short in order to donate it to those who need his hair. Liam's depth of emotion and selflessness has been an inspiration to me and others around him from the start, even before this life-altering challenge. It's brought out an even stronger and more emotionally complex personality from my son.
Liam and Hope at Star Wars: Episode VII
In the days leading up to Christmas, Liam started complaining of pain in his abdomen. At first we took it as simple constipation, but after some detailed and concerning explanations of his pain, we took him to acute care as a precaution.
After days of intensive testing, and many escalations from acute care to PCM to ER to childrens oncology, he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, on Christmas day. The pain in his lower abdomen turned out to be a mass associated with the diagnosis.
Since his diagnosis, Liam has gone through several chemo treatments and steroid doses, biopsies of the mass and bone marrow, spinal taps, insertion of a port (or portacath) for IV access close to the heart, as well as fingerpricks and insulin for extremely high blood glucose - a common reaction to the steroid medication, dexamethasone. It's heart-wrenching watching him try to come to terms with it all, to keep a smile on his face for visitors, and "wish things were back to normal."
As I mentioned before, he's smart for his age; he has been soaking up all the information from his doctors, trying to stay ahead of the curve, and thinking of ways to outwit the process. He started demanding the name of his disease almost as early as we did. He's been requesting the medical terms for every procedure and medicine and piece of equipment used in his treatment. He's been counting carbs of his own volition to try to keep his blood sugar down. It took a few days for him to accept the doctors' explanation that his glucose number (at times above 500) have little to do with his apparently excellent new low-carb diet. It's also hard for him to accept (being a hair-guy) that his treatments are so strong that they attack some good things on their way to making him better, including his hair.
He has been in the children's hospital since, isolated due to his compromised immune system and under constant oncology supervision. He was allowed to go home two weeks in and switch to out-patient treatments, only to have him re-admitted when the first outpatient treatment blood draw found his numbers through the roof. They say the intense "induction" phase will last a month, and that total treatment will run approximately 3 years. Currently, the three of us are trying to take it one minute at a time.
On top of all of this, he had to deal with the news from his hospital bed on New Year's Eve, that the family dog Buffy passed away. By this point, we're definitely ready to call 2015 what it was and move on to a better 2016!
Since this has started, we have endured many expenses that quickly racked up passed what we can handle. We also missed and forecast missing work while we focus on support to our son, and continue to organize things outside of the hospital for eventual home care and outpatient chemotherapy. Friends and family are doing what they can to support us, and we are so grateful and sorry we can't find the energy to say it as much as we think it!
Many people, friends and family, and patients in the hospital, came together to make Christmas as enjoyable as it could be for Liam and us, and we truly appreciate it.
Steph and I are staying strong for each other and for our son during this difficult time. We are determined to focus on getting through treatment and winning this together. We want Liam to, as he put it, "beat the boss guy!" and move on with living his long and exciting life.
Please help us help our little guy.
60 years ago, leukemia patients had no chance of survival, but through time and funding, technology and medical research, my son has a chance at a normal life. Your contributions will go towards easing the financial burden of Liam's fight against cancer. If we are fortunate enough to exceed our goal, the remaining funds will be donated to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to further leukemia research and support other cancer patients fighting the fight. As a family, we believe in helping improve the well-being of others by paying it forward to the next Liam. No child should have to endure what Liam is experiencing, and will have to experience, if we can help it.
Liam is one smart cookie. He has a passion for learning. His passion lies with math and science as he loves to tackle problems meant for children at least twice his age. He is learning how to blueprint for inventions, and has three companies he plans to "get running before I'm 18." He also loves solving puzzles and drawing mazes. Whenever he takes interest in a subject, he devours whatever he gets his hands on and tries to find real world use for the knowledge. He's an amazing 6 year old.
He has a kind, generous heart that always looks for chances to give more than he receives--to pay it forward. One of his latest acts of kindness was cutting his long locks short in order to donate it to those who need his hair. Liam's depth of emotion and selflessness has been an inspiration to me and others around him from the start, even before this life-altering challenge. It's brought out an even stronger and more emotionally complex personality from my son.
Liam and Hope at Star Wars: Episode VIIIn the days leading up to Christmas, Liam started complaining of pain in his abdomen. At first we took it as simple constipation, but after some detailed and concerning explanations of his pain, we took him to acute care as a precaution.
After days of intensive testing, and many escalations from acute care to PCM to ER to childrens oncology, he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, on Christmas day. The pain in his lower abdomen turned out to be a mass associated with the diagnosis.
Since his diagnosis, Liam has gone through several chemo treatments and steroid doses, biopsies of the mass and bone marrow, spinal taps, insertion of a port (or portacath) for IV access close to the heart, as well as fingerpricks and insulin for extremely high blood glucose - a common reaction to the steroid medication, dexamethasone. It's heart-wrenching watching him try to come to terms with it all, to keep a smile on his face for visitors, and "wish things were back to normal."
As I mentioned before, he's smart for his age; he has been soaking up all the information from his doctors, trying to stay ahead of the curve, and thinking of ways to outwit the process. He started demanding the name of his disease almost as early as we did. He's been requesting the medical terms for every procedure and medicine and piece of equipment used in his treatment. He's been counting carbs of his own volition to try to keep his blood sugar down. It took a few days for him to accept the doctors' explanation that his glucose number (at times above 500) have little to do with his apparently excellent new low-carb diet. It's also hard for him to accept (being a hair-guy) that his treatments are so strong that they attack some good things on their way to making him better, including his hair.
He has been in the children's hospital since, isolated due to his compromised immune system and under constant oncology supervision. He was allowed to go home two weeks in and switch to out-patient treatments, only to have him re-admitted when the first outpatient treatment blood draw found his numbers through the roof. They say the intense "induction" phase will last a month, and that total treatment will run approximately 3 years. Currently, the three of us are trying to take it one minute at a time.
On top of all of this, he had to deal with the news from his hospital bed on New Year's Eve, that the family dog Buffy passed away. By this point, we're definitely ready to call 2015 what it was and move on to a better 2016!
Since this has started, we have endured many expenses that quickly racked up passed what we can handle. We also missed and forecast missing work while we focus on support to our son, and continue to organize things outside of the hospital for eventual home care and outpatient chemotherapy. Friends and family are doing what they can to support us, and we are so grateful and sorry we can't find the energy to say it as much as we think it!
Many people, friends and family, and patients in the hospital, came together to make Christmas as enjoyable as it could be for Liam and us, and we truly appreciate it.
Steph and I are staying strong for each other and for our son during this difficult time. We are determined to focus on getting through treatment and winning this together. We want Liam to, as he put it, "beat the boss guy!" and move on with living his long and exciting life.
Please help us help our little guy.
60 years ago, leukemia patients had no chance of survival, but through time and funding, technology and medical research, my son has a chance at a normal life. Your contributions will go towards easing the financial burden of Liam's fight against cancer. If we are fortunate enough to exceed our goal, the remaining funds will be donated to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to further leukemia research and support other cancer patients fighting the fight. As a family, we believe in helping improve the well-being of others by paying it forward to the next Liam. No child should have to endure what Liam is experiencing, and will have to experience, if we can help it.
Organizer
Anthony Talley
Organizer
Glen Burnie, MD
