![]() ![]() That’s when I started feeling myself a little bit.” An Uncertain Future “I just beat one of the hardest diseases in the world. “That’s when I knew I’d been through some real stuff and beat the odds of surviving,” he said. Rider said making it through that ICU stay, while traumatic, helped him realize how strong he really is. Both of his lungs collapsed and he ended up in the intensive care unit on a ventilator for 15 days, with dangerously low white blood cell counts. “It’s so toxic that your hair falls out, your immune system shuts down, you’re throwing up and tired and hurting all the time… nobody takes drugs as bad as chemo.”ĭuring his fifth round of chemotherapy, Rider’s health took a scary turn. “I though t chemo helped you… and it does in the long run, but it hurts in the moment,” Rider said. Treatment involved five rounds of chemotherapy, which can effectively kill cancer cells, but not without damaging nearly everything else in its path. Rider had one of the hardest-to-treat forms of leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia. “No parent should have to hear that sentence.” What Doesn’t Kill You… “That’s the hardest thing to hear your child say,” Jen said. The first thing Rider asked his mom was if he was going to die. The pediatrician sent Rider and Jen to the emergency room at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, where an oncology team was prepared to break the terrible news – Rider had leukemia. His mom, Jen noticed as well – and when her usually energetic 12-year-old son started falling asleep at the kitchen table doing homework, she decided it was time for a visit to Rider’s pediatrician. But when he noticed a bruise on his back from a minor fall during gym class was a lot bigger than he expected, and wasn’t going away, Rider got a little worried. Rider is an athlete – he loves sports, especially football, so bumps and bruises here and there are nothing new. ![]()
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