Thomas Lowry

June 27th was one of the worst days of our lives. My husband and I were 2000 miles away from our son who was visiting his grandparents in Oregon when a team of doctors told us our boy had Cancer. After an all-night drive to Minneapolis and an early morning flight we broke the news to Thomas that something was wrong. The next week consisted of multiple test, operations, biopsies, and of course the endless waiting for a diagnoses. Thomas had a stage three, high risk germ cell tumor causing damage to his kidney and pushing his spleen and liver out of its way as it grew to the size of a softball. Cancer had just invaded our lives.

Thomas is a normal 14 year old boy. He is an above average student and he enjoys sports (basketball, football, tennis, skiing, & fishing). Then there is this other love in his life, Ice Hockey. He is a fan, but more importantly he is a goalie, and a good one at that. He laced up his skates (well his dad did), when he was 4 years old. Being the over protective mother I am I insisted he learn to skate before getting gear and starting to play. He very excitedly put on his gear at age 5 but soon another position called to my little hockey guy…. BEING A GOALIE! At age 7 he put on goalie gear for the first time and never looked back. He has a love for the game that only other goalies can understand. As hockey parents we have enjoyed watching him grow, learn, and recently start to guide other little ones who are starting to fall for the game.

This year was to be the start of the next chapter in his life as a High School Freshman. As I said cancer has a way of changing plans. Being a freshman is on a temporary hold while he fights the biggest fight of his young life. He has a tutor so as not to lose any ground, but the actual high school experience and all of its fun will have to wait for now.

Being a family of four living under three different roofs 2000 miles apart has proved to be quite a difficult task, physically, mentality as well as financially. My wife and I have always been hard working, provide for ourselves kind of people, but as the mountains of expenses keep building even we have our limits of what we are capable of. Any help that is offered is something special to us in an attempt to continue this fight so that we can get our son well and reunite our family under one roof again.

Thank you, LaDonna & Drew.