CHARLOTTE — September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Every week, nearly 300 children and adolescents are diagnosed, but many, like 6-year-old Harry, are getting a second chance through St. Jude Children’s Hospital.
Watching Harry play with his three siblings, you would never know he has fought one of the toughest battles there is.
“Harry is the life of the party,” his father, also named Harry, said. “He is the strongest kid we know.”
He and Harry’s mom, Erica, say their son was having unexplained fevers when he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a blood and bone marrow cancer, at just 2-years-old.
Treatment meant chemotherapy. Then, he checked in for an extended stay at St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis. There, Harry got a stem cell transplant that failed after 100 days, but Erica was a half-match, and was able to give her son a second stem cell transplant. This one took.
“Me being his donor is just a huge life-altering thing, and I don’t take it for granted,” she told Channel 9’s Gina Esposito. “I just hope these mommy cells just keep working.”
For Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Harry’s parents ask you to think of families like theirs.
“Support those around you that you know are affected,” Erica said. “Just a text message, a phone call, just to check in.”
Today, Harry still has challenges, but there’s also plenty of hope.
“We recently went camping for the first time, and just to see him be a kid, do things he’s never done before, you just sit there in awe,” his dad said.
They take life one day at a time, still traveling to St. Jude in Memphis once a month to manage the effects of the transplant. But this time, they have the future in mind. Their goal is for Harry to start first grade and be a normal kid for the first time in his life.
While some days still come with challenges, each day is filled with gratitude.
“Without the team in Memphis, without St. Jude, Harry would not be here, so I’m forever grateful for them,” his father said.
Harry is in remission now, but he still battles graft-versus-host disease, which is a complication of the transplant. It impacts some of his organs and his skin, for which he gets light therapy once a week.
Harry’s family plans to speak at the St. Jude Walk in Charlotte on Oct. 10. The opening ceremony begins at 9:40 a.m., and the walk kicks off at 10. Channel 9’s Deneige Broom will emcee.
Learn more about the walk and St. Jude’s mission here.
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