By David Schaeffer | Vice President, Development
Amos is a strong, smart four-year-old boy who isn’t afraid to take control of any situation. In January 2008, Amos was diagnosed with leukemia, leaving Amos’s mom, Maria, to face her biggest nightmare. Maria remembers, “I fell to the floor – we never imagined it could be cancer… how could this could happen to our family? After radiation, chemotherapy, and a bone marrow transplant, we realized we couldn’t do it alone. We got Amos a Chemo Pal from the Children’s Cancer Association, and their friendship changed our lives.”
Normally, it takes Amos a while to warm up to new people, but there was an instant connection when he met his Chemo Pal, Mary. At that time, he didn’t speak English very well and Mary didn’t speak Spanish, but that didn’t stop these two! They spent their visits playing trains and Legos, while Amos repeated the words he had never heard before meeting Mary like “okey dokey” and “giddyup.” They loved seeing each other so much that they started racing to see who could get to the hospital first.
Although Amos is very brave, his trips to the hospital for treatment scared him. Having Mary there helped ease Amos’s anxiety about treatments. Maria explains, “It helped to have Mary there because he would get excited to see her, which would keep his mind off what the doctor had to do next.” One day during a particularly painful treatment, Amos asked Mary to stand next to him and hold his hand. Their bond was evident in that special moment and it was clear that Mary would be a part of Amos’s life forever.
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