In those first eight months, Austin had twenty-four weeks of chemo, fifty-some nights at Rainbow and four abdominal surgeries, including one that removed a tumor that weighed nearly six pounds and measured in at a whopping 10 by 15 by 21 centimeters in size. Now if you’re like me, you may not know the metric system all that well, but I can tell you that is very very large. Especially in the body of a boy two weeks shy of his first birthday.

But by age 1 ½, Austin was cancer-free. He had lost his entire right kidney and 40% of his left, but it was functioning fine and he was a mostly healthy, totally happy and remarkably normal toddler. Mark and I, and Braedan and Austin, all patted ourselves on the backs and went on our merry way, believing that we had made it through our life’s hardest thing.
But we hadn’t.

In the winter of 2009, shortly after Austin turned three, another tumor was discovered on what remained of his left kidney. And if you think it’s hard to hear that your child has cancer the first time, it is immeasurably harder the second. Sure, you may not be as shocked, you knew this could happen after all, and you may not be as dumbfounded because you’ve been there and you know the ropes. But recurrence means a cancer is tricky, it’s smart and sneaky, little cells hiding in there, biding their time, waiting until you let your guard down just a bit, til you dare to pat yourselves on the back and believe you’ve done your life’s hardest thing. And then, bam, they’re baaaccck.

Treatment, this time around, was extra complicated. You see, in Austin’s case, we were always walking a tight rope between trying to rid his body of cancer as completely as possible while not doing undue harm to that precious little kidney. This was never easy. And it was something that kept us, Austin’s parents, and the incomparable Dr. Jeff Auletta, Austin’s oncologist, up at night. After all, we were all equally charged with his care.

So we worked together, as partners trying to map a course in uncharted territory. There are few if any kids in the country who’ve had quite what Austin’s had, which makes figuring out a treatment plan a little bit difficult. But we settled on one we all felt comfortable with, one we hoped would rid his body of cancer without destroying that kidney.

And it did rid his body of cancer. By the spring of 2010, there was no evidence of disease inside of our sweet boy. But it was also destroying that kidney, and Austin was then in stage 4 renal failure. Which meant, that as we finally finished one journey, we seemed just about to begin another: four hour stretches of hemodialysis every other day for two years. Followed by a kidney transplant.

We had toured the dialysis clinic, we were about to schedule the surgery to remove the kidney and place the necessary catheters when Mark, with Dr Auletta’s blessing, suggested that we take the summer off, give everyone a break — Austin, Braedan, us – let us rest for a moment, and just see what happened. And what happened was miraculous.

Every week when we went in for labs, Austin’s kidney function improved. A little bit here and a little more there. Numbers that were supposed to be high, went up, numbers that were supposed be low, went down. We decided one more time to keep that kidney and see just how long it could last.
In May of 2012, Austin hit a golden milestone when he was declared two-years cancer-free. In September of this year, he reached another milestone when he started kindergarten. He is still in stage 3 renal failure and will one day need a kidney transplant, for now, that little half-organ just keeps chugging along..
And this boy keeps chugging along too: spunky and clever, both brave and shy, extraordinary in so many ways, and yet so very very ordinary.

Website: GraceAmerica.org

Email: agallonio@graceamerica.org

Phone: 401-793-6337

Website: http://pablove.org/