Mikey Mitchell, 12, spent last Sunday working on his
pitching and hitting. Playing for the TVNLL major division Reds, Mikey was working hard to
prepare for the TVNLL and TVALL showdown on Monday night. Nothing remarkable really,
unless you happened to know that Sunday was Mikey’s fifth celebration of National
Cancer Survivors Day.
"He’s at this window," mother, Lisa Mitchell said,
referring to when a cancer patient with Wilms’ Tumor is considered cured. "Five
years is the magic number."
I first met Mikey when he was 7. He was in the initial stages of an
aggressive chemotherapy protocol hoping to knock out this cancer of the kidney that mainly
strikes children. Writing in The Californian back in February 1994, Mikey was
hailed as a hero for undergoing the experimental treatment of triple dose chemo for five
months instead of the standard two-year protocol. Lisa felt getting into the trial with
the shortened treatment allowed Mikey to get it over with and move on with life. "He
was one of the lucky ones," Lisa said.
These days, that is what Lisa wants to talk about, getting back to
life! Besides playing baseball, Mikey plays saxophone as a 7th grader at
Margarita Middle School, even though he developed asthma following chemotherapy. "It
doesn’t slow him down," Lisa said. "He’ll come in from the
pitcher’s mound, take a couple of puffs of his inhaler and go right back out."
"When they are in treatment," Lisa continued, "they
don’t think they are ever going to make it to that point. They get so tired of being
ill – their hair is gone, their energy is gone, they feel bad and they look bad.
That’s why it is neat to make it to these milestones. These milestones are big."
How they weathered the trial, how the whole family weathered the
trial, is Lisa’s other concern. At the time of the cancer, Mikey’s brother
Joshua was only 5, and twins Austin and Brandin were four. "They need a program like
TIP for cancer families," Lisa said, referring to the trauma intervention volunteers
that help crash and crime victims. "The family stress is immense."
For parents, the helplessness of not being able to protect their
child from painful procedures with unknown outcomes, as well as financial stress, is added
to by life and death responsibility for medical care and the acting out of siblings
feeling neglected. The Mitchells fought with their insurance company over anti-nausea
pills and had a terrifying moment when Lisa blew the tip off the IV line during daily
flushing of the lines and panicked an air bubble would get in, sending an embolism
instantly to Mikey’s heart.
"I’m so glad that’s behind me," said Lisa
emphatically.
That is the message Lisa voices with 8.2 million other cancer
survivor’s in the United States. That’s the past. People do survive. The future
still exists. Just ask Mikey, who finished his day celebrating with family at
Filippi’s and eating grandma’s homemade strawberry shortcake. It’s his
favorite