Go Gold--Natalee

Last december, my little brother, Isaac, was diagnosed with stage four rhabdomyosarcoma cancer. Rhabdomyosarcoma is an aggressive form of childhood cancer that takes place in soft tissue and then forms cancerous tumors, in which the doctors had found multiple tumors in his abdomen. Right away they started his intensive chemo treatments and the process began. A couple weeks in,his hair began to fall followed by his eyebrows and his long curly eyelashes, and the energy inside his little body began to fade with every ounce of chemo that entered his bloodstream.The next nine months were filled with doctor's visits, blood being drawn,radiation, CT scans,medicine every hour each for a different purpose and long dreadful hospital stays.

A port was put into his right side of his chest right in between his skin and the muscle. The port is where he received his chemo. Everytime he went in for his treatments, he described the chemo of a bitter taste of metal in the back of his throat. His blood counts began to drop and his immune system began to fall. He had to be taken out of school, away from all his friends and back at home he had to be moved out of his room, which he shared with my other two little brothers and into his parents room to keep a close eye at all times. Isaac wasn't allowed to leave the house since his immune system was weak. On my birthday isaac had gone out to the movies,he had convinced us he was feeling well enough, after the movie was over he was on his way home when he started to complain he didn't feel well. By the time he came home he had spiked a fever of 102 and had to be rushed to the hospital. I spent my birthday night worrying whether my brothers sickness had gotten worse. He spent the next couple of days stuck in the hospital, with tests being ran everyday. This was only one out of many times he had to spend multiple nights at the hospital.

Radiation therapy had its fair share on isaac. He was put into a machine where he was told not to move, and stay still. The machine then distributed radiation into his abdomen, which targeted his tumors and burned his insides to try and shrink the tumors as much as possible. Over the course of a couple of treatments, certain parts of his skin became purple and green almost like bruises, this was one side effect of the radiation. From chemo and radiation his weight began to drop and every night for two months he was hooked on a machine called TPN which distributed nutrients through his port. All these treatments changed my litte brother, he was no longer the energetic little boy who was constantly running around anymore. He spent most of the time laying in bed or sitting on the couch.

In July, Isaac had received a CT scan to see how well the chemo and radiation have been working. The results came back and the doctors said that his tumors looked like dead scar tissue caused from the radiation. This was the best news that we had received in the past seven month. On September 25 isaac rang the bell and received his last treatment of chemo, he is now set into remission where he then waits five years to be completely cancer free. Go Gold for those who have won their battle,Go Gold for those who have lost and Go Gold for those who are still fighting. Go Gold.