Claire's Story

In 2011, when Claire was 15 years old, she started to get tired. Really tired. Then her shoulder and side started to hurt. We thought that maybe it was just normal 15 year old tired. That maybe she pulled a muscle in the karate class she had just started with her dad. We were planning a trip to Australia, so we thought we'd better see what was going on before we left the country. After an exam her doctor ordered some blood tests. After the tests he called us at home and told us he wanted Claire  to go in for a chest x-ray right away. After the x-ray he called us late at night and said that even though he didn't see anything on the x-ray, he was going to check Claire into the hospital the following morning. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night. The next morning we checked in, and by the evening we were told the thing that no parent ever wants to hear, "Your daughter has cancer." Claire was diagnosed with High Risk Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, and our cancer journey began. What followed was 28 months of chemotherapy. The first year was so very hard, then it got a little easier after that.

 Claire missed her ninth grade year of school, went a partial schedule in tenth grade, then a full schedule in eleventh grade. She ended treatment in February 2014. Her senior year was her only year of high school off treatment. She had a blast! We spent almost a month touring Europe with her advanced orchestra (she's a violist), she did the school musical and plays, she went to California with the school orchestra, she got a 30 on the ACT without even studying very much, she was awarded two scholarships from her school and received a four year academic scholarship to Utah Valley University, where she planned on attending culinary school. Claire graduated from high school in June, and started her first job, at Subway. She opened her first bank account, put a deposit down on her first apartment, and was ready to take the world by storm. Being off treatment for 18 months and thriving, even her doctors seemed sure that Claire was going to be just fine.

Halfway through June, Claire had abdominal pain that was so bad that we took her to the ER. After several tests and a normal blood draw, we were told that it was probably a virus. Her oncologist happened to be on call that night, and she came down to the ER to reassure us that her blood work looked normal. The pain improved somewhat, but seemed to travel around to her shoulder and back. She also had low grade fevers and felt tired, but she kept working and we kept telling ourselves that viruses can take a long time to go through the body. Then, on July 9, after working her shift at Subway, Claire came home and collapsed in pain. I could tell by the look in her eyes that something was very wrong. We took her back to the ER, and by early the next morning it was confirmed. Relapse. The word every cancer parent is afraid of. Worse than "Your daughter has cancer." Claire was admitted to Primary Children's Hospital where she stayed for the next six weeks. She had intensive chemotherapy, more blood and platelet transfusions than I could count, a ten day life threatening stay in ICU that we would all rather not remember, physical therapy, music therapy, pet therapy...we were all thrust back into the cancer world with such intensity that we could barely catch our breath. And the life that Claire was planning on came to a screeching halt. As hard as it was, that induction period did what we needed it to do. Remission. A necessary step toward bone marrow transplant. Everything since then has been steps toward that goal.