Meet this month's cancer cutie the fierce Jayden! His story touched us and we know it will touch you as well. Please head to www.psiadoreyou.com to donate directly to Jayden and his family. Read his story below, written by his mom.....
Jayden was a happy and healthy 10 year old boy, or so we thought. Unknown to us his body was being taken over by cancer of the blood, otherwise known as leukemia. In August Jay began having headaches almost daily. We thought it was his eyes causing it, so we took him to get glasses. When that didn't help, we told him to drink more water. Then February 2014 came and he started having symptoms of a sinus infection. We took him to the doc and got him antibiotics. While on the antibiotics, his fever began to go away and he started to feel better; however as soon as the antibiotics were finished the fever and pain returned. Jay was prescribed a second round of antibiotics and the same thing happened again. For the next 2 week he ran a fever daily from 100-101. He wasn't acting sick, so Brett & Roberta (Jay's parents) thought maybe he had been exposed to mold or somthing. Wednesday, March 5, 2014 (Jay's brother, Joey's birthday) Roberta took Jay back to the doctor, where things began to get worse. At this appointment the doctor heard a very prprominent heart murmur and noticed that Jay's liver was enlarged. She ordered blood work and found that Jay's hemoglobin was at 4 (normal is 12). This was critically low, if Jay was an adult he wouldnt have been able to even move off of the floor. She told Roberta to take Jay straight to the emergency room. During the same test, Jay's platelet count was normal (about 8000). By the time they retested his blood at the hospital, 3 hours later, it had dropped in half to 4000. At the hospital, Jay was immediately admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit because of how dangerously low his hemoglobin was. Once admitted to the icu, the doctor requested to speak to both Brett and Roberta together where she explained that she believed Jayden was sick with leukemia. The next day her suspensions were confirmed.
