Why I Relay
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
By: Joelle Cruz

My son Brayden was born Dec 1, 2003. Six short months later he was diagnosed.

When we first heard about the Relay for Life there was no doubt in our minds that this was a tradition we wanted to start with Brayden.

July 28th, 2004 was the day Brayden was diagnosed with Infantile Fibrosarcoma (a cancerous tumor in his leg) and also the day that we changed the way we live and think about our lives forever. One never thinks this can happen to their sweet and innocent baby but in the span of a five minute phone call that will forever replay in my mind, I quickly found out it can.

For us the prognosis was good. After four rounds of chemotherapy and surgery our nightmare was over. Brayden was one of the lucky ones. We were lucky we caught it early, lucky he responded so well to treatment and lucky it hadn't spread. Sadly there are so many that are not as lucky.

Our five months journey pales in comparison to the years of suffering from much more aggressive cancers that many children and adults are faced with and sadly, they do not always win the battle......we do it for them. We do it for the amazing doctors and nurses who give so much care and compassion while doing a job that not many could handle. We do it for those who haven't received that awful phone call with the news yet.

We do it for Brayden and the other survivors. We do it for Uncle Alfredo who sadly lost his battle August 16, 2008 and Grandmother Maria.