Greyson LeBlanc - “Play with Chalk”

Hello,

We are Heather and Tyler LeBlanc and we are blessed to be the parents of our beautiful 2.5 yr old baby boy Greyson and a 7 month old daughter Hailey. I was diagnosed with infertility at 26 and never thought we would ever be parents. We welcomed little Greyson into the world in August of 2019. He has the sweetest little blue eyes and a smile that brightens up any day. He’s curious and a dare devil. He loves anything that has to do with breakfast, pancakes and scrambies and bacon are his favorite. He’s the happiest when he can run around outside in the sunshine with bare feet.

On Friday March 25th our whole world changed and Greyson was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer called a Hepatoblastoma, right now we are looking at a-couple months worth of Chemo and hopefully surgery to try to remove the 10cm tumor in his liver at Boston Childrens hospital. I have copied my journal entry from Caring Bridge and pasted it below. His page is private but if you register and request it we will approve it as soon as we can. Donations from this will help us for our trips out to Boston, food , gas and medical expenses for Greyson. thank you for taking the time to read this and please say a prayer for Grace

“ Play with Chalk’’

This is a sentence in my head that I am trying to change the narrative too, and I will explain in a little bit where it came from and what it means. 

   To start from the beginning on Sunday March 20th Grace woke up feeling hot and had a temperature of 101.9. We had a long day of snuggles, flat ginger ale, crackers, Tylenol and all of his favorite movies while laying in mommy and daddy’s bed.  He seemed to feel better, Monday came and he was more like himself, a high temperature spiked a little later in the day gave him some Tylenol and he was ok. Tuesday was the same thing. But on Wednesday he started being irritable and screeching, we also realized he didn’t have much of an appetite at all and would only pick at his food, and if you know him you know that little man could eat all day long if we let him and so after 4 days of him just not seeming right we decided I would bring him to the local ER. While there they checked his temp, his ears. Listened to his heart as well as Covid testing (neg) told us he has a viral infection causing his fever and it would have to run it’s course.  

Thursday came and went and he was relatively ok the whole day until our ride home. he again was just screeching and just not his usual self.  He went to bed that night and was still just a sad little man.  I felt in my gut that something was not right and even though I had gone to our local er it still wasn’t sitting right in my mind.  

Friday morning Tyler and I made the decision I would take him to the Umass university campus pediatric emergency room.  On my way there with him I knew in my mind I wasn’t leaving there with him until they checked him from head to toe.  

are there was amazing from the start I was checked in, triaged and in a room with him in 10 mins.  Upon listening to my concerns (multiple days of high temp/fever - screeching episodes - being clingy - lack of appetite - odd sounding but relevant his ears looked pale to me - I even went as far as saying maybe he had swallowed a rock (granted he never really puts things in his mouth but I had caught him putting a rather large rock in his mouth a couple days earlier in our breeze way) the ER doctor decided to send him for chest x-rays and an ultrasound.  Giving a 2.5 year old X-rays is not easy and I was so thankful for how amazing the staff was with him during all of it.  After X-rays we were off to the ultrasound. In ultrasound the tech gave him a fun pinwheel to play with to help him feel a little more at ease.  He did great through the whole ultrasound and when she was done she went and double checked that she got everything they wanted. Coming back into the room she explained she needed a few more images which I didn’t find odd since he wouldn't realllllyyy sit still. When she was done with the second round she went out but when she came back she wasn’t alone, I didn’t catch the 2nd techs name but she sat down next to me and explained that they thought they were looking for something in his intestines but what they found was a 10cm mass in his liver.  At this point I was at such a loss and all I could do was lay back down in Graces bed with him and hug him not ready to do what I knew came next with having to call Ty and our loved ones to let them know. 

We were taken back to his room and the ER doctor came in and again explained to me what they saw, I knew something was wrong with him but I never ever thought someone would tell me he had a tumor in his liver never mind it being that large. 

“Play with chalk” is one of the first thoughts my head had had. The week was long, cold, rainy and Grace was sick. Friday was the day I was looking forward to.  It was suppose to be 60 and partly sunny and I had made it a point earlier in the week to buy him side walk chalk so we could play with chalk outside and get some fresh air having mommy and Grace time. I didn’t picture this day the way it ended up, finding out my baby wasn’t just sick but he is sick sick.  Some of my harder moments is when my head will sit and repeat I just wanted to play with chalk.  I’m hoping by saying this over and over (which I feel I don’t have control over) I can change the way my mind is portraying the phrase and instead of breaking down and thinking the beyond worst thoughts I have been having, I want to ease my mind by saying I just wanted to play with chalk and” we will” Tyler’s words that I now play in my head when My thoughts start to  be destructive, this isn’t forever and my baby will come home and we will play with chalk in the fresh air with the warm sun kissing our faces.