The Knockout

When I was walking out of school last Thursday, my phone rang and I panicked. Dan took the day off to take Jack to the dentist (the chemotherapy Jack received will have negative effects on his teeth- just something we have to look for in the future) and I thought something went wrong. When I answered with a nervous voice, I could hear the happy in Dan’s voice as he said,”No! It’s good! They just called and he’s MRD negative!” Minimal residual disease (MRD) is the name given to small numbers of leukaemic cells (cancer cells from the bone marrow) that remain in the person during treatment, or after treatment when the patient is in remission (no symptoms or signs of disease). This was it. Jack was officially cancer free and in real remission. 

In a perfect world I envisioned a dramatic photo shoot of our fighter. Or maybe even a perfectly choreographed toddle up the stairs like Rocky. But that’s the thing about being a fighter… when the match is over, you get out of the ring, clean yourself up, get dressed, and get back to your family. I’m so happy that that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. Jack is loving life at home, visiting family, and being a normal kid. Of course his normal is slightly different, as he’ll definitely be closely watched and monitored for years. And there is always the chance that the cancer could come back or that it will have caused complications for our guy. But hey, no fighter worries about the next fight after they just beat the champ. They enjoy the victory and celebrate the win. 

Less than a week after that awesome call from Dan, we were preparing to go to Janet Weis to get Jack’s port removed. Jack’s port has been a literal lifesaver throughout this process - The way he was able to get the medicines that saved our boy. But through the process we certainly had a love-hate relationship. It was finicky. It was positional. It was a weekly fight to reaccess. And the darn thing was at one point pulled out and put back in by our little rascal during chemo...a terrifying moment for mom and the nurses who were treating him. This port, or brave spot, as Coop calls it, was the last thing Jack needed to be “normal” again. Not regular normal - but our new normal that we are figuring out each day. 

As we walked the halls after a crazy day of waiting around Dan and I were happier than could be possibly explained. Usually when Jack goes in for sedation it’s the worst experience, mainly because Jack can’t eat for hours leading up to sedation but is ferociously hungry when he wakes up each morning. After all, a fighter needs to carbo-load. Today he handled the craziness in stride, almost like he knew it was the last time. After his snackfest when he came out of sedation, we walked over to the Clinic where Jack checks in each visit because one of our amazing Doctors wanted to make sure we could ring the bell. The bell is there to signify the end of treatment, and being that we lived at the hospital during Jack’s chemo, he didn’t get to ring the bell. We were thinking we were walking in, ringing it, and leaving...boy did we underestimate our JW family. They rallied the troops for our Jack, surrounded him with love, a song, and toys that were definitely picked especially for him. Then they lead us to the bell and celebrated loudly and oh so proudly as he happily rang it over and over again. Our Jack, all of our Jack, has beaten cancer and they were certainly making the victory lap a great one. 

Leaving the clinic Danny and I boarded the elevator and laughed how normally I’d be crying happy tears but I was just too happy to even think of crying. We decided we needed to extend the victory tour to Children’s 3, our former home, to see our people. We walked in and were immediately greeted by our gals. We walked around and showed off Jack’s newly forming hair - something that’s affectionately gaining him the nickname “Patches” as it resembles hair plugs more than peach fuzz. Jack was amazing, toddling around despite the fact he just had a dang surgery! And he even almost walked into his old room. You see, this place was never scary for him. These amazing people, and our incredible family, made it a home. Jack never was sad here, more than any other kiddo would be sad from time to time. Sure he didn’t love being poked and prodded, but he loved the attention, was treated like a king, and was constantly surrounded by love. I think that’s the thing that I’ve learned the most from this crazy trip with cancer. When you have love in your life, the bad days don’t stand a chance at outweighing the good. 

So I’m not sure if this is the end of Jack’s journey, or maybe it’s just the beginning. Our family has been so amazed, humbled, and utterly overwhelmed by the kindness, support, and generosity of those who wanted nothing more than to make it as easy as possible for us to save our guy. Now we work to pay it forward. We will be working to make “Jack Attack Gives Back” a movement filled with kindness and generosity like that we received. Now we look to see what our fighter has up his sleeve for the years to come. We may not know what the future will bring for Jack, but whether he’s a normal kid or grows up to be the next president or even better, cure cancer, we know that the world will always be a better place because he’s in it.