Teens & Children

At age 2, Myra began having fevers and joint pain. Her parents took her to their pediatrician where she had bloodwork done. The results came back normal except it showed she was a little anemic.

“Myra never had any bruising or any issues other than the recurring fever,” according to her father.

In May 2019, when Carter was just 2 years old. While attending his cousin’s graduation in New York City, I knew something was not right because he was not feeling well. We rushed him to New York Presbyterian Hospital where he received several blood and platelet transfusions.

Megan is my daughter. She was diagnosed in April 2020 with stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) at the age of 16. At the time, Megan was finishing up her sophomore year of high school. Due to the pandemic, school was virtual, and even though she had a month and a half to go, she finished with straight A’s while receiving chemo. She would go on to have four cycles that included 16 rounds of chemo.

I am an awardee of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Scholarship for Blood Cancer Survivors. I currently hold an associate’s degree in science and am pursuing my bachelor's degree in biology at California State University, San Bernardino, (CSUSB). I am very grateful to be granted this scholarship to help pay for my tuition.

I am 39 years old, a father of two boys and one girl ― Abdias, 12 years old; Ester, 10 years old; and Ben, 9 years old ― and a husband to my wife Erin for almost 14 years.

On December 23, 2018, our lives changed forever. And sadly, it was just the beginning.

I was assigned to work a night shift an hour away from where I dropped my son, AJ, off at my sister’s. I got a call from her two hours later. She said AJ was not feeling or looking well. My sister, Kyesha, took him to the emergency room.