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It all started about 2 weeks before Owen’s 2nd birthday. His mom started noticing Owen was a little “off”, he was bumping into things and missing things that were right in front of him. She talked to his teachers at daycare and they didn’t seem to notice anything – she thought she was just being paranoid. After a few more instances like this and a wellness check, followed by calls to the pediatrician, Owen’s family left on a Sunday night at 6 pm to head to the emergency room. His mom says, “really that was the last time we were normal…”
Doctors at Hershey told Owen’s parents that he had tumors behind both of his eyes – meaning Owen had cancer. Then they called the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and got an appointment the following morning where Owen was officially diagnosed there with Retinoblastoma – eye cancer.
Their outlook of saving his eyes was bad, but the doctor they see, Dr. Carol Shields, is the leading expert in Retinoblastoma and she told them the plan – 6 months of systemic chemotherapy and specific eye chemotherapy along with other special procedure on Owen’s eyes. Fast forward 5 months and Owen and his family are just about to finish up his 6th round of chemo at CHOP – Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Owen had bit of a rough patch in December when we had to travel to Wills Eye weekly for chemo eye injections, but he pulled through like a champ and he still has both eyes.
His mom says, “Owen never ever gives up!” She says, Owen wears his hat almost every day for the NEGU motto on it. When people ask us what does it stand for, we are happy to tell the story.
WE NEGU FOR YOU OWEN!!!
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