Featured Hero: Jaxon

Jaxon was overall a super healthy outgoing active kid. In mid may 2024 he started to complain of stomach aches. But as a parent we go through our mental check list; constipation? Junk food? stress? does he REALLY have a stomach ache? (Cause we know kids like to say they do, when they don’t.)

It wasn’t an every day complaint. He still ran around like the energizer bunny, played shortstop on his baseball team and still ate like a preteen boy. It wasn’t something that I worried about since it wasn’t an every day, every week thing. He had all his normal energy & didn’t complain of anything else so I figured he was constipated, didn’t want to go do something, or maybe needed more of his loathing food group- vegetables.

The first week of June Jaxon graduated first grade then began to complain of stomach aches more frequently. The week after school got out Jaxon tested positive for strep. The Dr said that stomach aches can sometimes happen. After a ten day prescription for step, he was STILL complaining of his stomach hurting. Now I’m more on alert. Strep was gone, he’s complaining more and now feeling fatigued and not eating… not even his favorites. I knew something was wrong. Within hours after taking Jaxon to the ER, getting his first abdominal xray, getting transported to Sutter Medical Center, Jaxon was diagnosed with cancer. Within maybe six-seven hours all that happened. He had a 14.6 cm mass in his abdominal area that was wrapping around his left kidney and taking up 70% of his abdominal aeorta. That morning we also did a ct scan of his lungs. Lungs were 70-80% covered in cancer nodules. Stage 4. In less than 24 hours my happy active son was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Due to how dangerously big his mass was, the team decided that running a biopsy on it was too risky. So with that being said, Jaxon was *originally diagnosed with Wilms Tumor. After six weeks of outpatient clinic wilms chemotherapy, the mass did not shrink. To quote one of our oncologists, “the wilms chemo helped made the tumor not explode.” We love it when our Drs are encouraging like that.

After further testing Jaxon was diagnosed with a “non generalized”Sarcoma. He had four months of intense chemo treatments, all inpatient in the hospital. Four days worth of chemo, twice a month. All chemo treatments led to a fever a week later which then made us march ourselves back to the hospital,sometimes at 1am, for another four or five days worth of antibiotics. Let’s just say, we needed a frequent flyer card, and still do. We did this dance for four months. Jaxon had abdominal surgery October 2024 to remove his kidney & mass. We finished up chemo late November. Had a month to be home then had right lung surgery January 2025 to remove a few big nodules and his upper lobe of his lung. When he yells now, you definitely can’t tell that he only has 2/3rds of his right lung.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask) the chemo treatment worked too well that the pathology from the mass and his lung nodules both came back necrotic. It helped shrink the mass & lung nodules significantly as well, yet still couldn’t figure out what kind of cancer he had. In march we started radiation for some very small nodules in his left lung. We did ten days total of radiation & had to add a couple of days due to a surprise cancer spot on his t7 found on spine, that the team decided we needed to treat.

Thinking we were done with all our whole treatment plan, we were mentally preparing to get out Jaxon’s port and to slowly go back to back to school.

A few weeks post radiation, Jaxon started to complain of headaches. I had this funny feeling it wasn’t a side effect from radiation. We were thankfully doing our last ct scan the same week so after being on & off the phone with our oncologist for a couple of days…more like, after Jaxon woke up from his naps still complaining of a headache AND throwing up more than twice…one of our oncologist added in a head ct scan. This threw me for a loop because my mommy instinct was right. Our abdominal, lungs & chest scans came back clear but our head scan did not.

April 5th, yes on a Saturday, I get a call from his oncologist saying, “ I don’t want to tell you this over the phone, but yes he does a frontal lobe tumor”. By the end of the week Jaxon under went brain surgery to remove his tumor. This mass looked different than the rest, and that’s because this was an active cancer tumor. Not a necrotic one from the chemo. We are currently staying waiting for the pathology but from my understanding Jaxon will need more inpatient chemo,a lumbar puncture to make sure there’s no microscopic cancer cells floating spinal fluid and radiation.

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