Skyler James Isaacson

This amazing little boy is Skyler.  He is 4 years old and the strongest little boy I know.

Skyler's Story:

Skyler has been struggling with his health since he was an infant.  He has been in and out of the Dr's office and hospital.  He has struggled with ear infections all his life which led to him having tubes put in his ears to try and stop the infections.  During these last couple years his ear drums have burst multiple times causing him extreme pain.  He also has croup that he gets frequently.  During all of this Skyler lost his Dad Ben to a heart tumor just days before his 2nd birthday.  About a year and a half ago Skyler's mother Crystal noticed a lump on the bottom of his jaw.  In order to remove this lump Skyler had to be healthy for 6 weeks straight.  Every single time his mom went to schedule his surgery he came down with an ear infection, a cold or croup.  This went on for just about a year.  Meanwhile his lump continued to grow.  In May of this year Skyler was finally able to have the lump removed.  After all that time of waiting the lab had thrown away the sample they collected without testing it for cancer.  In June Skyler under went a second surgery to remove the lump again.  This time the procedure was more of a risk since the mass was inertwined with the nerves in his face.  The surgery went well and we were told the mass was not cancer.

Two weeks ago Crystal began to notice Skyler becoming sick.  He had a fever on and off for a week and his eye lids began to swell up.  His mom decided to take him to Insta Care on Saturday August 14th.  They told her he just had allergies (ignoring her concerns and stating it didn't matter what kind of allergy just that it was an allergy) and sent her home with and antibiotic.  By Sunday his entire face began swelling and by tuesday he was extremely nausous, very swollen, his stomach began to protrude and had unexplainable bruising all over his body.  Crystal felt something was not right and took him into his Dr.  His Dr. told her that his Spleen and Liver were very swollen and told her to take him right up to Primary Children's Hospital.  When they got to the E.R. it did not take them long to determine that he had Leukemia, now it was just a matter of waiting to find out what type of Leukemia he had.  On August 18th they were able to determine that he had Leukemia type ALL.  Although this is the better of the two types of Leukemia, Skyler has it bad.  They took him into surgery later that day to have a central line placed in his heart for his treatments, bone marrow taken from his hip and chemo in his spine to make sure the Leukemia did not reach his brain.  During the surgery Skyler started bleeding from his lungs.  They were able to control the bleeding but fluid still remains in his lungs making it very hard for him to breath. Skyler started his first round of Chemo and is in extreme pain.  He can barely walk and even the slightest touch is very painful to him.  He is having a hard time releasing the fluids they are giving him which has caused him to gain 10 lbs in less than a week.  He is such a fighter and although he is having an incredibly hard time still finds the strength to make his mommy laugh.