The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
OVERCOMING LEUKEMIA
Kallet Civic Center: Mom and daughter share powerful story at kickoff event in Oneida
ONEIDA » The date of Friday, May 6, 2005 is one Lindsey Cross will never forget, she told the audience of the annual Relay for Life of Madison County Kickoff event at the Kallet Civic Center on Tuesday.
Thatwas the day she and husband Chuck Cross were told their 2-year-old daughter Camdyn had cancer.
“There are very few moments that you truly remember,” Lindsey said.
Mother and daughter teamed up to present their story for the first event of the season for the Oneida-based Relay, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. And nearly 13 years later, even with Camdyn now cancer-free standing by her side at that Jan. 16 meeting, telling her memories of that day still brought mom to tears.
Shortly before her diagnosis, Camdyn had been suddenly stopping what she was doing in tears, complaining of pain. She was increasingly less active, andwas sleeping more than usual while eating less. At first, she was treated with
antibiotics for an ear infection, something that was nothing out of the usual for her, Lindsey recalled.
But when that didn’t get better, Lindsey and Chuck grew more apprehensive. Next, the doctors thought it might be mononucleosis. Camdyn was given a blood test for that ailment, but when the phone call finally came from the doctor’ s office, the news was much worse. So bad, in fact, that they were told to immediately head to the local hospital where an ambulance would be waiting to take them to Syracuse.
They would need to stop at the doctor’s office for some paperwork for the oncologist on the way, they were told.
“We heard the words that changed our lives forever,” Lindsey said.
Camdyn was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. She was ushered right to a room of her own from the Emergency Room, and quickly given two blood transfusions because her counts were so threatening. Lindsey remembered at one point being told little Camdyn had a “good” form of cancer, but that was a concept that was hard for a mom to grasp.
“No cancer is good to the ears of the parent,” she admitted.
Camdyn admits she doesn’t really remember much about those early days with the disease, only the good parts. For hermom, that’s perfectly fine. She said she endured more than two years of treatments, with 15 hospital stays for a total of 70 days of inpatient visits. She had 10 blood transfusions, five platelet transfusions, 840 days of daily chemo pills, 160 days of steroids, 116 blood draws, 68 port accesses, four bone marrow aspirations, and 15 spinal taps in that time.
But thanks to a generous amount of TLC, the youngster never felt apprehensive about her trips to the doctors. Even through all of the medical procedures, she really liked going to the hospital to see the doctors and nurses there, Camdyn said.
“I liked them so much that I would pretend to be sick so my mom and dad would have to take me to the hospital,” she said.
Lindsey said she has a specific date in mind for the time she will stop worrying about Camdyn’s leukemia returning.
“She starts driving at the end of the year,” Lindsey explained. “That’s when I stop worrying about her leukemia and start worrying about her driving.”
Camdyn, a sophomore at Stockbridge Valley Central School, is planning to study physical therapy with a concentration in prosthetics. Lindsey said the American Cancer Society was always there for them during Camdyn’s journey with leukemia.
“Without their treatment options, she would be facing a very different future,” mom said.
Camdyn said after their Kickoff presentation shewas glad to be able to give a little back to help a group that helped her.
“I’mglad to be able to help the American Cancer Society,” she said.
This year’s Relay for Life of Madison County will be seeing some changes when it returns on June 2, said chair Jennifer Armlin, including a new venue and time. Because of work being done at their traditional location of the Oneida High School track this summer, Relay is moving to Vets Field in Oneida. The hours have also been shortened to 4 p.m. to midnight, to eliminate any downtime seen in previous years and keep the entertainment and fundraising flowing.
ACS community development manager Melanie Francis said the Kickoff was a success.
“This was great -- we recruited some new teams and got some new people involved, and that is the point of having the Kickoff,” she said. .
The Relay for Life of Madison County celebrates and honors local cancer survivors and their caregivers, commemorates anyone lost to the disease, and shows ways that funds raised benefit the local community. New teams and individual participants are always welcome to join the fun of the fundraising, and can sign up in advance or simply showup the day of the event to help out.
For more information, contact Francis at 315-2394474 or Melanie.Francis@cancer.org or visit: www.RelayForLife.org/MadisonCountyNY