On Thanksgiving day 2013, Enrique began having stomach pains off and on with fevers that came and went throughout the day. The pains continued over the holiday weekend and we took him to our family doctor on Monday morning. The doctor thought he was suffering from constipation but was suspicious about the fever that kept coming and going. By Tuesday evening, Enrique had lost all appetite and only wanted to sleep. We took him to the ER and were shocked to find out that he had leukemia. He was rushed over to Helen Devos Children’s Hospital to have immediate blood transfusion and chemo started. It was here that we found out he had “type T, ALL leukemia”, the most common and most curable form of leukemia. His white blood count was out of control, and we were scared that he would start to have organ failure/complications.
Fortunately he was being taken care of by the best doctors in our area. They were able to get everything under control and a few hours after arriving (but it felt like an eternity to my husband and me) we were already getting news of how well he was responding to the treatments. Only one week later he was allowed to go home. He looked so much better than he had just a few days ago.
It is one month later and Enrique continues to show great results to his treatments, in fact we just recently received the wonderful news that he is now in remission. We have a 3 year journey ahead of us before he can be considered cancer free and cured, but we enjoy everything with a whole new perspective now. All the little things in life that we had taken for granted a month ago bring so much joy to us now.
HHH Update: We were lucky enough to meet with Enrique in December and give him a new iPad mini, thanks to the generosity of HHH donors. And, most importantly, we are happy to report that Enrique is responding well to treatments!
Enrique is enjoying the ipad mini he received from HHH! He especially enjoys facetiming with his friends and cousins when his immune system is too weak due to chemo to see them in person. Enrique also likes to play games, watch movies and even get some school work done on his ipad mini, which is protected stylishly inside a blue Angry Birds case!
Also, below is one of Enrique’s school writing assignments where he had to write about a time when he was surprised. His mother said that he knew right away that he was going to write about the iPad mini he got from HHH!
