Most families look forward to going on a journey. They save and plan and wait eagerly. Unfortunately, that’s not how the Seth's family’s most recent journey began. One morning Seth woke up with the flu and by nightfall his family left his doctor’s office in Lake Havasu, and was flown on Life Flight to a hospital
in Las Vegas with Seth on a ventilator. Not exactly the journey a family would choose to take. Seth spent the next five weeks on life support in the PICU. After countless tests, the doctors finally discovered that Seth had adult peripheral t-cell lymphoma. Only 45 children in the world, 10 in the United States, have had the same diagnosis in the last 20 years. The cancer manifested itself as a large tumor which was sitting on top of Seth’s lungs. Because this form of cancer is so rare in children there was no treatment protocol. Jill, Seth’s mother, said after speaking with doctors from Stanford, Sloan Kettering and Phoenix, “They just had to create the treatment plan and hope it worked.”
After more than 20 surgeries and several rounds of chemotherapy, Seth was able to travel from Las Vegas to Phoenix for a life saving bone marrow transplant. The donor was Seth’s younger brother, and now hero, Mason. Mason was the perfect match for Seth’s transplant. Doctors told the Seth’s family there would only be a 1/3000 chance of that happening.
Seth is several months past his transplant now and Mason has returned home to go to school and Dad is back to work. Seth and his Mom spend their days at the Ronald McDonald House and the journey is finally moving in the right direction. Jill is adamant that, “Being able to stay at the House has made a horrible situation much easier. Without the House we would have had to sell our house, quit our jobs; we literally don’t know what we would have done.” This isn’t a journey the Seth’s family wanted to go on, but Jill wants others to know, “Ronald McDonald House was there for us when we needed help. This could happen to anybody with a child and the House will be there for them too.”
