Carter Needs Us: Fighting Stage 4 Cancer



Carter was a healthy 7 year old boy that played soccer and loved going to school. He is the most happy, loving, and charismatic child. Around Thanksgiving he started complaining of leg pain and was limping when he walked. After a few days of the pain getting worse, we took him to the doctor and was told he pulled a muscle. A week later he completely lost the ability to walk and was screaming in pain. We took him to the emergency room and they did an MRI. After the MRI was completed they let us know they found a tumor on his lower spine and it was pushing on his nerve and was causing the pain. They did emergency surgery to remove the part of the tumor that was on his nerve and to do a biopsy as well. A few days later they let us know it was cancerous. Our world was turned upside down. He had to do multiple procedures and testing to get more answers. It took a few weeks to get the full diagnosis back and that is when we learned he had a rare cancer called Neuroblastoma stage 4 and that it had spread to his bone marrow. The doctors said it fell into the high risk category and is very aggressive. They immediately started chemotherapy. He will have extensive treatment over the next 18 months. His treatment includes, chemotherapy, radiation, stem cell transplant, immunotherapy, and more surgeries. He will spend one week in the hospital getting treatment every month and will not be able to go back to school. He still is not able to walk because of the nerve damage in his foot but is strong and doing physical therapy to be able to play sports and be a normal kid again. The bills are adding up with daily parking fees, gas and food its hard to concentrate on keeping Carter happy while worrying about the bills adding up.