Paxton's Friends Fund

 Paxton’s journey started on November 13, 2020 when he was diagnosed with infant Leukemia, one day before his sister, Karly’s, 4th birthday party.  He wasn’t feeling well so his mom took him to the doctor who sent them to the emergency room where he was diagnosed.  He was flown to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah that evening where he was admitted into the PICU (Pediatric ICU).  His official diagnosis was infant Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). At the time of arrival, he had over 90% blasts (cancer) in his blood and the doctors were worried about it taking over his whole body before they could get a handle on it. 

 Paxton said no way! After spending 2.5 days in the PICU, they were able to significantly decrease the blasts and he was transferred to the Cancer and Transplant Unit to start chemotherapy.  In the weeks to come, tests confirmed that Paxton’s ALL had an MLL mutation which means that two chromosomes break off and attach together, making mutated chromosomes that attack the healthy white blood cells.  MLL is an extremely rare and aggressive mutation, so Paxton was put on a 2 year chemotherapy treatment plan. 

 The first round of chemo resulted in a 40 day hospital stay.  While Paxton was in the hospital, his mom and dad rotated to ensure that Paxton always had one of his parents by his side- day and night.  Due to room constraints, only one person could stay overnight, so they rented a house near the hospital to use as a home base for the parent not staying the night with Paxton, and also so Karly could have a place to come to visit her parents since she wasn’t allowed at the hospital- thank you COVID-19. 

 Paxton had a bone marrow biopsy on December 12th to see how effective his first round of chemo was progressing.  The report came back that he had no blasts in his blood and 0.5% blasts in his bone marrow!  His first round of treatment was supposed to end December 19th, but Paxton’s poor body wasn’t recovering blood counts as quickly as hoped which kept him in the hospital longer than originally anticipated.  On December 23rd, Paxton was discharged so that he could go home and spend Christmas with his family. 

 When Paxton checked back into the hospital on December 28th to start his second 28 day round of chemo, he had another bone marrow biopsy.  The results came back that he had 20% blasts, meaning his treatment plan was working to kill the cancer in his blood, but not the source of where the cancer was coming from.  After consultations, Paxton’s care team decided that his current treatment plan wasn’t going to save him, so they decided to shift their plan to plan B, a bone marrow transplant. 

Paxton's big sister Karly tested and was the perfect bone marrow match! Over the next few months, Paxton underwent CAR-T therapy and then pre-transplant chemotherapy in preparation for a bone marrow transplant. 

Paxton received his bone marrow transplant on May 9th with his mom and dad by his side. Unfortunately, sweet Paxton experienced a severe side effect from the transplant called VOD which resulted in him being transferred to the PICU. He ended up spending 37 days in the PICU battling VOD, 9 of those days was on a ventilator while his poor body tried to heal. 

Paxton spent a total of 75 days in the hospital after his bone marrow transplant which really strained his family. His big sister missed him so much and his mom and dad would rotate days to ensure that he had someone with him at all times. After he was discharged, he had to stay in the Salt Lake City area for daily check-ups and blood work to ensure his body was responding and to get blood transfusions when needed. 

Though his family longed for the days that they could all be together again at home, being out of the hospital enabled his big sister Karly to visit him on the weekends. Paxton's parents were thrilled to have their family of 4 together again as much as possible. 

As Paxton's blood work was continually checked, he hit a few bumps in the road, but his family was so hopeful that they were just minimal. Until, the unexpected test results.

On August 17th, during a routine check-in, Paxton's mom got the words no parent should ever hear- "Paxton's cancer has relapsed and we've exhausted all options."

Paxton and his mom packed up immediately after meeting with his doctor and went home to Rock Springs, Wyoming to spend the rest of Paxton's time on earth as a family. 

Paxton  gained his angel wings at 9:28pm on September 1, 2021.