Rage Jon

My name is Holly and I'm reaching out to help my life long best friend's son. Her worst nightmare came true in January of this year, when her son Jonathan was diagnosed with cancer,  Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Jon is 11 years old and enjoys sports activities, video games and playing with his 2 year old sister. His heart is full of love and laughter and his strength is beyond my imagination. This family has gone great lengths from traveling in the miltary to residing back home to care for Amanda's mother whom was terminally ill with ovarian cancer. They now reside in their forever home located in Swansea, Illinois.

As Jon's journey continues I will post updates on treatments and progress.   With family by Jon's side he stays optimistic and hopeful. Any postive words, shares and/or donations are held with the deepest gratitude.
 All donations assist the family's medical expenses and income loss from unpaid time off.

These words below, are shared from the Cook Family.

“Last October, Jonathan started losing weight dramatically, about 30 pounds in 3 months and spending a lot of time in the nurse’s office. At first we thought it might have been a result of bullying at school or losing weight to try to impress a girl, but during the winter break my wife noticed a pretty good sized bulge in his stomach and stressed making a trip to the emergency room. It turns out his spleen was not functioning properly and had subsequently enlarged. After seeing the results of his blood work, and spending 9 hours in the E.R., he was admitted to the Hematology/Oncology floor of St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Still unaware of what the problem was, my wife and I were pulled into a small but comfortable room and the doctor closed the door.

The doctor’s demeanor suggested to me that my wife and I would be different people upon leaving that room. Soon enough, our fear was justified, as the doctor told us our son had Leukemia. We had a pretty rough time holding ourselves together. As I was trying to find a balance between gleaning all the details of what Acute Lymphoblastic meant and attempting to fathom how this would affect our lives, I noticed my wife had traded her usual reserved countenance for a complete absence of hope and an abundance of emotion. We would end up leaving the hospital 11 days later. My son had a PICC line hanging out of his arm and my wife and I just received a crash course on how to take care of a cancer patient. A while later he had a port installed in his chest. This is how he would recieve his chemotherapy.

We have gotten used to taking FMLA time off work for chemotherapy every Friday and blood work every Wednesday and also for unexpected hospital admissions. Finding someone to be with him every day since he can’t attend school is an unpleasant distraction in our lives but not totally lost in its benefits. As a result of this he has gotten to spend a lot of time with family that would have otherwise been spent at school. My son’s school, Wolf Branch, has been a pleasure supporting us in this situation and sends a teacher over to the house twice a week to keep him up to speed on his work,  with the goal of starting 6th grade next fall with his classmates.

We are hoping for a bone marrow transplant but the National Marrow Donor Program has yet to find a suitable match. Now it seems my wife and I are the best options to be the marrow donor, but still not ideal. His little sister is too small to donate the necessary 500mL of bone marrow so we have grown accustomed to sharing our story in hopes that more people will sign up at BeTheMatch.org. This process really has been streamlined and does not require going to hospital to sign up. They send you the kit for a mouth swab and you send it back, all free of charge.”

www.BeTheMatch.org