Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Friendship on display at Cancer Challenge
BELLA VISTA — The 2022 Cancer Challenge held recently in Bella Vista gave many people the opportunity to join together in the fight against all forms of the deadly disease.
For young friends Madison Parker and Caelie Cox, it was another chance to get together and hang out at the Kingsdale tennis courts and to support one another. Madison was there supporting Caelie while she played in the tennis portion of the challenge, and Caelie was there playing in support of Madison, who has chronic myeloid leukemia, a form of leukemia in which a person’s bone marrow produces abnormal cells that push out the healthy cells, leading to infection, anemia and easy bleeding.
“I was born with it,” said Madison, 14, who lives with her grandparents, Fred and Cecilie Parker, in Bella Vista. “They found out I had it when I was in kindergarten.”
Madison, who will be a freshman in the fall at Bentonville High School, takes medicine to combat the leukemia’s side effects, which include fever, feeling very tired and weight loss for no known reason.
“It makes me have headaches and feel like I basically can’t do anything,” she said. “Sometimes when I’m sick I feel like I’m going to die. There’s a lot of pain. But the medicine keeps me healthy and not so sick.”
The encouragement she receives from her 14-year-old friend helps, too.
“I don’t want to think about it that she has leukemia,” said Caelie. “Sometimes I’ll just put it in the back of my mind because it’s hard. When she’s having a hard time I just stay positive like, ‘You got it!’ because I know she’s strong. Even if something were to go wrong I would still support her and be friends with her.”
Caelie, who lives in Tulsa, teamed up with Derek Dohmen, of Bentonville, to compete in the tennis tournament. But playing tennis seemed to be just a small part of the visit.
“She makes me feel like I can do anything,” Madison said of Caelie while flashing a smile.
Madison said she isn’t able to play sports at school because the leukemia makes her weak. But prior to one of her friend’s matches June 11 the two were able to take a few moments to hit the ball back and forth, an exchange that ended up producing more laughs than shots that made it over the net.
Madison said she has lost her hair only once since being diagnosed with leukemia, and that was during a stay in the hospital when she was first diagnosed with CML.
“I was in the hospital, and that’s when they found out I had leukemia and they gave me chemo,” she said. “That’s when all my hair fell out.”
During the event, her brown curls spilled over the Cancer Challenge visor she wore while taking softball-style cuts at the tennis ball, laughing at the results with Caelie, whom she has been friends with since 2011.
“My grandpa and her dad were great friends,” Madison said when asked how she and Caelie met. “My grandma said I’ve known her for a while, but I didn’t know her name, so I just called her either ‘the little girl’ or ‘Callie’ until I learned her actual name. I’ve been talking to her ever since.”
The two were inseparable June 11 when Caelie wasn’t playing a match. They held hands during the interview for this story — after Madison said she was a little nervous — and hugged each other while having their photograph taken, just as friends should.
When asked about the Cancer Challenge and what it meant for her to be there in person and to see so many people working and participating in the events in an effort to raise money to fight cancer, Madison said, “It makes me happy because it will help everyone get better and everybody can be healthy and not sick.”
But it also meant a lot to her to get to hang out with her friend, to cheer her on while she played in the tournament.
“I’m just here watching and supporting my friend,” she smiled.