Honored Heroes

OLLIE

Ollie was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on November 6, 2019. He was an incredibly smart and cautious child who was enjoying preschool and looking forward to turning 5 and starting Kindergarten. While Ollie had stayed in pretty good health his entire childhood, we did not have any great concern when he developed a cough after his first few weeks of school. That’s what is supposed to happen, right? Unfortunately, the cough was soon accompanied by a fever, which was then accompanied by many sleepless nights. Ollie was getting very weak from all of his symptoms, and we feared he had developed severe bronchitis or, even worse, pneumonia. He was being monitored by his doctor, but one look at him on the morning of November 6 had her recommending an immediate blood panel which came back with the worst news we could possible had been told – our child had cancer.

Ollie’s journey began with a 32 day stay at The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His first chemotherapy treatment was on November 7, 2019 and his last chemotherapy treatment was on December 9, 2021. Over those 25 months, Ollie received chemotherapy weekly, dealt with extreme side effects to an intense steroid regime, had multiple blood transfusions, and went through over a dozen spinal taps. He was declared in remission upon leaving the hospital in December 2019 and maintained positive blood level results throughout the course of his entire treatment plan.

Ollie is now 8 years old and in third grade. He plays soccer and basketball for fun, but has a deep love for art and, music, spending much of his free time drawing or playing his guitar.