Darren is a 6 year old sweet, cheeky, compassionate little boy who loves music and dancing. Darren was Diagnosed with Type T cell ALL Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia while on vacation serving with his family in Papua New Guinea on July 12, 2016. Darren got sick with a dry cough, so his parents took him to a clinic and were told he had an upper respiratory infection, they started him on antibiotics for a week. A few days later, Darren complained that his legs hurt and he couldn’t walk, and he had bruising all over his body and it became hard for Darren to breathe. He could get air into is lungs but not out. His parents then took him into the ER in Papua New Guinea and did a breathing treatment which helped for a short while.
Darren’s breathing continued to get worse so we had a private doctor examine him and he told them that he was having trouble breathing and needed to go back to the ER for a another breathing treatment. At the Emergency Room they did an X-ray, a breathing treatment and Iv antibiotics. The X-ray revealed that Darren had a mass on his chest the size of grapefruit compressing his lungs, and airway so he couldn’t get air out of his lungs. The Doctor then started Darren on IV antibiotics and steroids (which saved his life). He was admitted for 24hrs for observation. Darren and his mom caught a flight the next day to Brisbane, Australia to go to the children’s hospital and get a second opinion. They checked into the Emergency Room and Darren was feeling better and his vitals were normal. They thought he was fine then his mom told them she was not leaving until they did another chest X-ray. The X-ray confirmed that Darren had a mass on his lungs that was leukemia. That is when our hearts were broken and our whole world was turned up side down. Darren then spent the next 30 day inpatient in Brisbane for his induction period.
Darren loves riding his scooter, building legos, soccer, and basketball.
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