Ollie Maschke

Child’s Story

Ollie Maschke

Diagnosis: Leukemia

Okay here it is. I hope it’s not too long!

Oliver, or Ollie as we call him, is 8 years old. He loves playing Minecraft, collecting all things corgi, and telling jokes. He is a normal 8 year old in every way, except that he has leukemia. When Ollie was 5, he started limping and complaining of his leg hurting out of nowhere. He had no injuries and the limp seemed to come and go. I (his mom) took him to the doctor to get it checked out, and the doctor barely looked at his leg, and dismissed it as growing pains. For 2 weeks, Ollie limped on and off, was extra whiny and easily upset, needed help getting dressed, getting in and out of the car, and didn’t sleep well. I thought it was behavioral. But there were other strange things I noticed about him, like tiny purple dots on his back and how incredibly skinny he was. One day, he was crying for me to help him get undressed, something he’d been doing by himself for nearly 2 years. As I was helping him, he winced, and it clicked in my brain: He was in pain. I decided to call the nurse hotline, and after describing his various vague symptoms, the nurse said, “I don’t want to alarm you, but this is an emergency and you need to come to the ER immediately.” That day, Ollie was diagnosed with leukemia and we were life-flighted from the hospital by our home in Idaho Falls to Primary Children’s Hospital in Utah. For the next two and a half years, he did a variety of chemotherapies to cure his leukemia. This included many hospital stays, drives down to Utah, pokes, yucky meds, nausea, isolation, lumbar punctures, bone marrow biopsies, infusions, and a whole lot of fear. I quit my job, found online work, and made taking care of Ollie my full-time job. Ollie fought hard and I did my best to help him through it while balancing caring for my oldest child, co-parenting with the kids’ dad, getting through the financial strain this caused, and caring for myself as best I could as well. But after all that, in October, he rang the bell after finishing all his chemo. We celebrated, but something felt off. I didn’t quite feel like we were done. Devastatingly, 3 weeks later, Ollie had a severe headache that would come in the early morning and fade by afternoon. I took him to the doctor, and after getting a lumbar puncture, they discovered his spinal fluid was under serious pressure and after testing it, found leukemia in it. Ollie had relapsed. Since November, he’s undergone more chemo, something called Car-T therapy, and now he is hospitalized, undergoing radiation and chemo to prepare for a bone marrow transplant. Ollie is the bravest kid I know. But I wish he didn’t have to be. It’s not fair that almost half his childhood has been spent doing all of these difficult medical things. Despite all the fear and scary things he has to go through, I always cling to hope. I hope he heals and has better health and peace in the future. I hope we can persevere through these difficult times and come out stronger. No matter what, I know with all my heart, there is always hope.