Support William in his fight against leukemia

William Strelbisky is an 8 year old boy who was just diagnosed with Leukemia.  William's journey will start Monday, February 8th.  Please consider helping out the Strelbisky’s financially  during this difficult time.  Mom (Victoria), Dad (Joe) and William’s two sisters; Alison and Hannah are  William’s #1 cheerleaders and supporters.   Let’s make sure the Strelbisky family has the finances they need so they can focus on their family during William’s chemo treatments and recovery.  

The Strelbisky’s story started around 4am on Boxing Day 2020 when William woke up with a fever and pain on his right shin.  His Mom thought he had probably just bumped it when he was sledding so She gave him some Children's Tylenol and put him back to bed. When he woke up in the morning it was still sore and the fever was back. The fever lasted about 24 hours and then it disappeared. For the next week, the pain in his leg was so bad he could barely walk and sometimes he felt it in his left leg as well. Sometimes he had pain behind a shoulder blade, sometimes behind both shoulder blades. Each day was different but there was always pain.

The following Saturday he woke up feeling great with no pain.  Mom and Dad were relieved and thought everything was fine.  This lasted for one week.

The next Saturday William woke up with pain in his right shin again and once again he could barely walk. The pain changed places each passing day, either in one or both of his shins and sometimes up to his knees, or behind his shoulder blades. But no matter what, there was constant pain. Plus... their already thin little boy was losing weight.

They went to see their family doctor who sent a req for bloodwork. It came back looking fine. No red flags.

Long story short, after 3 blood tests and a trip to a pediatrician in Red Deer on January 29th, they still didn't have any real answers. There were some "cell blasts" that showed up on the bloodwork but nothing to support it to say it was definitely leukemia or anything else. At this point William was in extreme pain and could barely walk. Everyone was stumped. The pediatrician even sent him to get x-rays of his legs and chest. The results came back normal. Perplexed, the pediatrician called Mom on Tuesday, February 2nd to see how William was doing. He decided he would call a cardiologist to say we needed to get in right away because he was worried it could be pneumatic fever.

Two days later on Thursday, February 4th, William and His Mom headed to Calgary to see a pediatric cardiologist who told them William's heart looked perfectly fine. He had, however, looked at William's file and noticed the cell blasts. This concerned him enough to write a note, put it with photocopies of information from William's file. He told them to go have lunch and then head to the Alberta Children's Hospital emergency room, and not leave until they read his note and checked out William. So that’s what they did.

When William and Mom got to the Children's Hospital ER, they took them right in. They looked at the note the cardiologist had sent and took it seriously. Within a few short hours they were certain it was leukemia. They kept William and Mom overnight in the Oncology unit. The next day William had a bone marrow biopsy at noon and the results came back positive. Leukemia. They were emotional, stressed, and overwhelmed.  All of a sudden they were getting an information overload and they have been trying to comprehend all that has been thrown at them in this shortamount of time.  

Please keep the Strelbisky’s in your thoughts and prayers as they go through William’s treatments and are on this road to healing.