My perspective (by Abby)

My mom says writing a blog post is a great way to control your emotions. I have a lot of big emotions and feelings about what's going on with Ollie right now. I remember the day I found the bump; Ollie and I were brushing our teeth in our bathroom, when I noticed a small little red spot that seemed to be blistering on Ollie's neck. After I had found the bump, I told my parents that I found a red spot on Ollie's neck that appeared to be just a sunburn. The "sunburn" kept getting bigger and bigger and that's when we knew that it wasn't a sunburn. Before arriving at the heart breaking diagnosis, he visited countless doctors who misdiagnosed the bump as something minor, like a bacterial infection. 

When one of the doctors suggested they go for tests at CHEO, that's when I started to really worry about his situation. In school when it was time for intentions during prayer, my intention was always that Ollie's bump wouldn't be anything major. The whole time when I was thinking what the bump could be, cancer was always at the top of the list. I also remember the day we found out the diagnosis, my mom had told me that we were going to find out the results of all the tests Ollie had done at CHEO and she also said that it was likely that it would be the day that we found out the diagnosis. My dad was driving me to school, when we were in the car I said "Dad, do you think Ollie might have cancer?" my dad said, "Abby please don't say that."

I had this gut wrenching feeling that everything was not okay at school that day. I remember that I was in science class when my teacher got a call on the intercom saying that my mom was going to pick me up. I went to the office to find my mom there. Everything was quiet. I came in and she was almost finished talking to my principal and some teachers. When we went to the car, I asked my mom if she got the results back and she sighed. Then she drove to a quiet street away from the school and parked. She told me what the doctors said and about the diagnosis. When she was talking to me all I could hear were the loud thoughts inside my head about how everything wasn't going to be the same. 

When we got home Ollie was sitting there looking kind of sad. I suggested we play foosball. We played foosball and I let him win. How I wish things were still like that. 

The first two rounds of chemo went by quickly. After his second round of chemo he was home for a brief while before he spiked a high fever. He left to go back to the hospital and after a week there we got the devastating news that it was in his brain and spinal cord. He lost his sight and most of his happiness. The two months that Ollie was in the hospital felt like years. 

I had strep throat during that time so I didn't get to see Ollie and that just killed me. He was also in isolation a lot and couldn't have visitors much. After two more rounds of really tough chemo, he finally came home and two days later he  had an infection and was back in the hospital for 16 days. He then came home for 24 hours and we left for Toronto to get him a stem cell transplant. I'll write another blog post soon about my donation. 

But before he could get my stem cells, he started getting bad headaches and after tests, they found cancer in his brain again. They said the only way to put him back in remission was to take these huge pills. When we found out that if he didn't take the pills over time he would die, I felt the same way as I did when I found out he first had cancer. I bawled my eyes out and prayed as hard as I could. I sent him a video when he was in the hospital of reasons why he should live. To my relief, he took the pills, no problem. 

Curveball after curveball, our family is beating the odds and kicking cancer's butt. We're praying daily that new friends we have met at CHEO and online whose families are fighting cancer do the same.