There is a real-life little boy in Columbia South Carolina who informed his mother at the age of four- “I want to be a doctor when I grow up.” In 2011 at ten, this child entered 5th grade at Lonnie B. Nelson Elementary School.  Always having excelled in school, he had only just overcome many personal challenges in his life that children should never have to experience with his initial challenge being bullying. However, he refused to let being bullied by other children change his course to success. Therefore, he continued to excel soon finding that most of the children admired him and soon he was a role model to his peers. An avid sports fan, this young man participated in year round basketball and football as well.  However, as the year progressed, he continued to maintain A- honor roll and was soon elected President of the student body.   Needless to say, the bullying ended and life was happier than it had ever been.

 

The son of a college professor, reading was very important in the home, and an avid reader he was, with his latest quest being the Harry Potter series. However, for Christmas his mother gave him a book called Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story.  He loved the book so much that he finished it in two days. He now knew exactly what type of doctor he wanted to be. At this time 5th grade meant making decisions about what middle school he would like to attend, and gifted children could compete to get in schools with curriculums geared toward real-world learning.  He chose a middle school that focused on exercise science and sports medicine. However, he would have to interview as part of the selection process as slots were limited. On the day of the interview, he was very nervous as his mother was not allowed to accompany him, but she waited anxiously as she knew how important this truly was to him.

 

He exited the interview room confident and excited. As his mother grilled him about what interview questions were asked of him, he paused for a second.  He really could not remember many of them, but there was one question- the very last question that he remembered clearly. They asked him what type of doctor he would like to be when he grew up. “I want to be a Pediatric Neurosurgeon.” The little boy answered, and he and his mother went about their day.”  Four days later, the first headache came. His mother- A family nurse practitioner immediately made a pediatricians appointment and on February 29, 2012, after two weeks of fighting what was believed to be migraines, the little boy with aspirations to be a brain surgeon was diagnosed with a very large and very rare cancerous brain tumor.

 

In the next year of his life, he would miss the remainder of his 5th grade year; have complete brain resection, thirty-one radiation treatments to his entire brain and spine and 5 months of high dose chemotherapy treatment. He would lose all of his hair and brows, his appetite, many pounds, and also miss many major milestones in his life including the transition to middle school. However, he was still a child and through all of this, his only complaint was that he missed his friends. This amazing young man received treatment at one of the most magical places in the world- Saint Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis Tennessee.

 

From the time they arrived miracles began to take place in their lives that his mother refused to call coincidences. She knew it was the magic of God.  As he endured the horrible intensity of the treatment   he never once questioned God, but only called on him when at his lowest points. His mother felt helpless. As a health care provider, all she could think, was that saving lives was her job, but she could not save her own son.  At forty years old she had to learn what it meant to “let go and let God,” and that is what she did. So she placed her child in God’s hands asking for a complete healing, and each day as he rested she took out a pen and paper, and began fighting the battle against her son’s cancer in a fantasy world where magic, and fairies and angels were the norm. Learning at Saint Jude that her story was not unique she did not make the book about her family specifically, yet she chose young Maurpikios Fiddler and the Fiddler family to symbolize all the children and families experiencing the different forms of this devastating disease.

 

The true heroes in the fight against childhood cancer are the children themselves. They endure so much so that one day no child will ever have to go through what their tiny little bodies are put through. Yet through all of that, they still believe in magic and fairies and their little imaginations always tend to overcome the doubt and disbelief that we as adults tend to gravitate to when chaos enters our world.  I am the parent of that little boy and he has so inspired me to be a better person, a better friend, a better colleague, a better practitioner, but most of all a better servant to my God.

 

Our Surgeon at the Medical University of South Carolina was a blessing from God, and Saint Jude’s in Memphis, Tennessee is amazing.  I challenge everyone who reads this book to support this institution as it does great things for families, and like God, it is not a respecter of persons. They don’t care what you look like, and they turn no one away. However, one of the greatest lessons we learned at Saint Jude is that Cancer doesn’t care what you look like either. The patient population consisted of individuals from all backgrounds, all races, different countries, and varying socioeconomic statuses, but with all those differences we still bonded and we became one family. We loved each other, laughed together, cried together, and when we unfortunately lost a child, we celebrated their life together.  Saint Jude has in no way asked me to do this, and is not affiliated with this book nor this website. However, I will forever be grateful and indebted to both them and the medical team at MUSC in Chalreleston South Carolina for doing God’s work and saving my child.

 

This story is fictional; however, it is loosely based on our journey. Young Maurpikios Fiddler is not my child, and the Fiddler family is not my family, yet all of the characters that were created through my own imagination are a culmination of every wonderful child, family, doctor, nurse, administrator, and staff we encountered in our journey. I wanted to share not only our experience but the magic of this wonderful place and the journey that my family and the other families experienced as we discovered the true meaning of magic.

 

 

Thank you, M.J. Logan.