Austin M.
Arizona
16 Years Old
Diagnosis: Stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma
Theme - Japan/Tokyo (i.e. cherry blossoms, beautiful scenery with mountains, traditional Japanese houses)
Favorite Colors: Black and Purple
Due Date: May 15, 2025
Austin's Journey
Austin was looking pale to us back in March. (After going through what we did with Austin's brother, Ethan who also had cancer, I’m paranoid.) We took him to the doctor and they did blood work. We took him to the doctor and they did blood work. Everything was fine except his vitamin D was low. Fast forward to September; during that span he had a cough that stuck around for a long while and still seemed pale to me. Then he started complaining of his upper back and left shoulder area hurting. We thought he is growing, and he plays on his computer a lot. Maybe he needs to be adjusted. Then he started coming home from school and just passing out and sleeping for hours. Soon his appetite went to the wayside. So I was like we need to take you back to the doctor. Something just doesn’t seem right. We called on a Thursday and they couldn’t get us in until Tuesday. Over that weekend he complained about his back and shoulder hurting. I went to take his arm and put my hand on his chest to kinda give his arm a stretch. That’s when I felt a huge lump. I asked him how long he had that. He said just that morning he felt like he woke up with a bruise. This was no bruise.. we went to the doctors on Tuesday Oct 1st. They sent us to get an X-ray of his chest. A few hours later we got that dreaded call that no parent should get and now we are getting it for the second time with a second one of our children. We need you to get Austin to Banner Desert Hospital; they are expecting you. The X-ray shows Austin has large masses in his lungs. We spent 7 days in the hospital testing for infectious diseases or malignancy. They did CT scans, MRI’s, more X-rays, 2 different biopsy surgeries, one of the mass in the lungs and one of an enlarged lymph node in his neck. They did a TB test, tested for Valley Fever. The Oncology team that we know very well from Ethan’s treatment, very much felt it was infectious. We were all hopeful; we couldn’t go through this again! Of course all these test results take time, and we couldn’t go home until he was cleared of TB. Then the Valley Fever comes back negative. Your instant response as a parent is oh good. But then it dawns on you.. no we want one of these to be positive. Then the TB test is negative. They told us we could go home and wait for the biopsy results. It would be way more comfortable than the hospital. The very next morning October 9th 2024 we got a call from Ethan’s primary Oncology doctor. He told us he was so sorry but the biopsy of the lymph node came back and Austin has High Risk Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He told us in all of his career he has never seen 2 siblings have 2 different kind of cancers. They wanted us to come to the clinic so we could talk over treatment. We couldn’t believe it; how is this happening again to us! That afternoon they went over the results. Informed us that this will be 5-6 months of intense treatment, 5 cycles of inpatient chemotherapy which consists of 3 days in the hospital, 5 different chemos each day. Then the next week 1 chemo in the clinic, followed by the next week of count checks and rest. Then repeat. Then he might need radiation; they would know after the full body pet scan. First we had to go to a fertility clinic and he would need to have sperm frozen. The chemotherapy might make him infertile. Followed by a full body Pet Scan. On October 14th we started treatment. Austin had surgery to have a port put in where all his chemotherapy would go through. Unfortunately we were very experienced with this from Ethan. Then he would have 3 days of chemotherapy. After the 3rd cycle he had another full body Pet Scan to see if the treatment was working. It was at this time more results finally came back from the lung biopsy. It was in his lungs which is pretty rare. This made him Stage 4 but since they were already treating him as High Risk the treatment was the same. The point we are at now is currently just finished 5th cycle of chemo. We have met with his radiation team which is at the Mayo Clinic. He will need 3-4 weeks of radiation M-F. This will start in February. We are dealing with side effects of the chemotherapy; he has regular pulmonary function tests for his lungs. Last one showed he has COPD. We had another one on the 17th. He can’t go back to school during all of his treatment so he is homebound now. He has lost all of his hair, has had ER visits due to fevers which turned into a 4 day stay. He gets sores in his mouth from the chemo. Takes tons of pills daily, everything tastes different. He is immune compromised so doesn’t go much anywhere besides the hospital. He has had to have blood transfusions. He feels like crap a lot and sleeps a ton. We had genetic testing done on Austin and Ethan and there is nothing. We are just very unlucky.. But through all of it, he is still our Austin, he is a fighter and is gonna kick Cancers butt!
