Introducing Team Jackson's A.L.L. Stars - Friends of Heroes Affiliate

Please share a little bit about your precious son Jackson?

Jackson was born May 23, 1999 and was a healthy baby boy. He has always been a constant joy and was a very easy- going baby. We celebrated Jackson’s 8th birthday back in May and it’s hard to believe he is now a 3rd grader. In Jackson’s free time, he loves playing sports. His favorite is soccer. He also loves playing basketball and baseball. Jackson is one big sports fan! He just about loves any sport out there. He is a big ESPN fan.

Can you share about his diagnosis with cancer, his prognosis and how it has affected your family?

Jackson experienced a lot of joint and bone pain for about 3 months. It progressively had gotten worse and it had come to a point where he was not able to walk on his right leg. We had taken him to his pediatrician’s office on several occasions and when he was no longer able to walk it was very alarming to us. His pediatrician ordered a CBC for Jackson “to rule out leukemia” and unfortunately it was not ruled out.

The next morning was the scariest day of our lives. Our worst nightmare had come true. We were told that Jackson had leukemia and to get him to UCSF Children’s Hospital in San Francisco as soon as possible. Jackson was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia on November 22, 2004. Our lives were immediately changed. Jackson was admitted for 3 weeks and his chemotherapy began immediately. Jackson’s chemotherapy treatment will last approximately 3 ½ years. He is scheduled to go off treatment February 2008.

The last three years have been long and exhausting. But, we always try and make the best of our lives. We truly appreciate each moment we have together as a family and I never take for granted hearing, “I love you Mom,” or playing with my children.

Have you been involved with Light The Night in the past?

This will be our 4th year participating in Light the Night. My husband and I participated with Jackson in 2000, prior to his diagnosis. We also participated in 2005 and 2006. We are very excited to be involved again this year. It is such an amazing evening. We are so glad we are able to celebrate Jackson’s life along with other survivors and remember those lives that have been lost to blood cancers.

What made you decide to become a part of Friends of Heroes as an affiliate?

I really like the fact that we are working together with other affiliate teams to stop childhood cancers. In honor of raising $100,000 or more The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society have allowed FOH to name a research grant in support of raising awareness of pediatric cancer. For the last two years FOH has selected UCSF Children’s Hospital, Researcher Dr. Weimels as the grantee for a prestigious grant.

(For more information on Dr. Weimels, you can follow the link below for a letter where he talks about his cutting-edge research http://www.friendsofheroes.org/walkerresources/letter_DrWiemels.pdf )

We were grateful to have you as an affiliate in the 2006 season and are thrilled to have you team up with us again.

Please share a little bit your experience with the 2006 walk season and the planning leading up to the walk. Did you have any plans for your team fundraising last year?

The last two years we have not been able to focus on our fundraising like we are this year. Now that we are getting closer to Jackson going off treatment, we are trying to focus more energy towards Light the Night. We have doubled our fundraising goal this year and hope to surpass that. We have done some fun fundraising events, such as dine and donate nights at local restaurants, a fundraising bunco evening and also a kids’ night out fundraiser. We have been having a lot of fun!

Now for the evening of the walk itself...

What are your plans for your team leading up to the 2007 walks?

We are very excited about the walk this year. We have included a special boy who lost his battle to leukemia in May to our team. He fought a relatively short but very hard battle and he will forever be remembered as a true hero. We are proud to honor our friend Jacob Mihalca. We are focusing more on raising funds and awareness and are looking forward to raising more money.
Thank you for sharing Jackson’s story with us, we will continue to keep him in our thoughts and also will keep Jacob in our hearts during this year’s walks as well.