Maxwell’s Cancer Diagnosis

It all started with a cold. Max had been sick for a few days and that cold turned into the flu. After visiting the Pediatrician office all week, I thought he’d turn the corner. A temperature of 104.6 degrees led us to take him to Advocate Children’s Hospital. We did notice some small dots, but we weren’t sure if that was because of his fever but we’d later learn it was a sign of Leukemia. In my mama heart something didn’t feel right. This fever didn’t feel right, and my sweet boy wasn’t ok.

The kindest and most soft-spoken ER doctor, calmly, said “We suspect your son has Leukemia and you are being admitted to the PICU tonight.” All I remember after those words is just screaming and praying to God. I looked over and my husband who is the strongest person I know is in the corner sobbing.

There is MUCH more to our story and Max would go on to be hospitalized for 33 days. It’s been almost a year and it’s still hard to talk about those 33 days. As I’m sitting here, the tears just come on their own. I’ll get to sharing the full story, one day.

What Senad and I have been reminded of is all the good and faith in god.

We did our first toy drive for the hospital in June to spruce up their oncology Playroom. It brought us so much joy to be able to do that. Of course, nothing would happen without all the incredible support around us. In November a few family and friends reached out asking if we were going to do another toy drive for the holidays. We definitely thought of it but we weren’t sure if we should. Before we knew it we filled our basement with 811 toy donations!

This leads us to “Maxwell’s Toy Box” and creating this space to be a resource for parents and caregivers all while we keep our toy Drives going.

That’s it for my first blog. I’ll keep these short and sweet. Thanks for following us along and all the love.