My cousin (jake) and his battle with cancer his blog http://heidi-jeff.blogspot.com/

April 19th, 2008 is a date I will never forget. It is a day that will be ingrained in my mind forever. I will remember the clothing I was wearing, the smells in the room, everything that was around me has been imprinted in my mind. It was a day that changed our lives forever. Jeff was out of town for work and Jake had been having fevers on and off for about two days. Friday, I noticed a rash that covered his arms but still did not think much about it. That night, he did not sleep well and his fever topped off at 104 degrees. I figured it was just a virus that was going around as my neighbor told me her daughter had just gotten over the same thing. Her fever lasted for about a week. But I decided to call his pediatrician just in case it was something else the next morning. The nurse told me that strep can sometimes come in the form of fevers and a rash, so bring him and to see if that was what it was. I sent my three year old to the neighbors and packed up Jake and our eight week old baby in the car thinking we would be gone maybe an hour. The doctor took one look at the rash on his arms and called an ambulance. The rash was called petechiae which is basically broken blood vessels. It is usually caused from very low platelets. The nurse told me that his rash was the worse one she had ever seen. Jake had tested positive for strep and our doctor thought that there was a chance the strep had gotten into his blood stream and he had become septic. Within an hour being at PCMC, we were told Jake had leukemia. He was admitted to the hospital and we started chemo treatments the next day.
The next three years were some of the most difficult of our lives. We had a new baby, Jake gets sick and then, two months later, my husbands company decides to close their doors. He frantically searched for a new job so we would have insurance to cover medical costs. A month after that, Jake begins to lose weight. He stops walking. He stops talking. He stops eating. We slept by that sweet boys bed for two weeks wondering if he would be able to wake up in the morning. He ended up dropping down to 33 pounds because of an intestinal infection. After that episode, things began to get a bit easier. We ran into quite a few roadblocks along the way, but we made it. June 24th 2011, he finished chemo treatments. We had a huge party for him, and we were so happy that he was able to just be a kid. Not the kid with cancer. Just Jake.
Fast forward to December. He finds a lump in his groin area right before Christmas. Our doctor was kind enough to wait until after the holidays to have it biopsied. The moment the surgeon opened him up, he knew the cancer was back. Three percent. There was a three percent chance that he would relapse. It has spread through his bone marrow and we are now fighting this awful disease once again. And fight we will. This kid is a warrior. This is his story for the next two and a half years. He makes me want to be better. And I am so grateful for his bravery. He is our little hero. Want to know more go to http://heidi-jeff.blogspot.com/ thanks.