Brayden Jones, Color of Hope Champion Child:
Age: 11
Hometown: Bella Vista
In April 2009, when he was 9 years old, Brayden Jones began having trouble breathing. His parents took him to the local emergency room, where doctors ordered a chest x-ray.
"When I first saw his chest x-ray, I immediately knew something wasn't right," Brayden's mother, Lisa, says. "His left lung was barely visible because of a huge mass in his chest. When the doctor pulled us aside and told us Brayden had leukemia, we just cried and cried."
Brayden and Lisa flew to Arkansas Children's Hospital on an Angel One helicopter, while Bryan, Brayden's father, made the drive from Northwest Arkansas to Little Rock. Once at ACH, Brayden was admitted to the Donald W. Reynolds Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), where doctors immediately begin working to save his life.
Brayden had a mass in his chest that was doubling in size every 24 hours, pushing his airway aside and putting pressure on his organs. Once he was stabilized, doctors placed Brayden on an intense regimen of chemotherapy to shrink the mass. Luckily, the tumor began to shrink and after four days, Brayden was transferred from the PICU to the hematology/oncology unit.
"We knew moving out of the PICU was a great step in Brayden's recovery, but it was also a cold dose of reality for us," says Lisa. "We saw sweet little ones with bald heads and IV poles and reality hit us. We realized this is what the next stage of this battle will look like."
Brayden went home to Bella Vista after 10 days at ACH. He began receiving a weekly treatment at a clinic in Northwest Arkansas, with a monthly visit to Little Rock. His cancer is gone, but his treatments will continue until August 2012.
"We have come to be so comfortable with the staff at ACH," says Lisa. "Brayden is doing so well now thanks to the amazing care he's received there and we never want to take that for granted."
Brayden, a 5th grader at Ambassadors for Christ Academy in Bentonville, enjoys playing golf with his dad and watching sports.
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