Andrew & Michael’s Story

In March of 2009, 10-year-old Andrew was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), the most common form of childhood cancer. In the eight months following his diagnosis, Andrew received aggressive chemotherapy treatments every 7 to 10 days to kill the cancer in his blood and stop any new cancer cells from forming in his bone marrow.  He achieved remission early on, and the intense chemo was successful at keeping the cancer at bay. In December of 2009, Andrew began the two-and-a-half year “maintenance” phase of his treatment in which he is treated with daily and weekly oral chemo pills, high-dose steroid pulses which have led to a serious and painful bone disease, and monthly visits to the clinic for intravenous chemo as well as regular spinal taps and chemo directly into his spinal fluid. Andrew is scheduled to complete his cancer treatment July 8, 2012.  Andrew is treated by the wonderful team of Pediatric Oncology specialists at The Children’s Hospital in Aurora, Colorado.

Less than four months after Andrew’s shattering diagnosis, his then 13-year-old brother, Michael, was critically injured in an ATV accident in the mountains west of Colorado Springs. Although Michael was wearing a helmet, he suffered a serious traumatic brain injury. He was airlifted to Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs where he spent 3 days in a coma, 4 additional days in ICU, and was then transferred to the rehab unit at The Children’s Hospital in Aurora. One of Michael’s three skull fractures caused severe damage to his facial nerve which left him completely paralyzed on the left side of his face. He underwent extensive surgery to repair this nerve and additional damage to his middle ear bones. Doctors have described Michael’s recovery as “overwhelmingly remarkable.” While Michael has made miraculous progress to overcome his injury, he too faces a long journey to full recovery.

This blog follows Andrew and Michael as they continue to push on, to fight, to heal. Thank you for visiting.

Our motto: “It’s not about the why…It’s about the win.”

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