I am running for the 2019 Students of the Year program, a seven-week initiative in which select high school students from around the country participate in a fundraising competition to benefit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The candidate team that raises the most money at the end of the seven weeks is named Student of the Year.

My story began when I was 9 years old and on New Year's Day January 2014 I woke up with golf ball sized lymph nodes on both sides of my neck and my mom rushed me to the emergency Room because she thought I was bit by a spider. From there I was misdiagnosed for about a month because they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me and the entire time I started losing weight couldn't eat and couldn't sleep without gasping for air and no one could tell my mom what was wrong, they kept giving me antibiotics. Finally one day my mom couldn't take it and she just took me to the hospital and begged for someone to look at me and finally a doctor that wasn't my normal doctor listened to what my mom was saying was wrong with me and they did a chest X-ray and that's where they saw I had a tumor half the size of a basketball sitting on my chest almost closing my airway. I was diagnosed with stage IV T-Cell Lymphoblastic Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that night I was sent to pediatric ICU and was given an aggressive amount of steroids to help shrink the tumor and chemo and that went on for 2 and a 1/2 years. During that time I had caught just about the worst of every side effect that chemotherapy has with the worst ones being necrotic pancreatitis, C-diff, port infection and severe neuropathy. With all the different chemo rounds that I had, I really tried hard to let my mom know that I was a fighter and letting her know I was going to be okay even though I was scared. On February 5th 2016 I took my last dose of chemo and began my cancer free journey.  Since then I have been boy of the year for 2017 for the leukemia And lymphoma society in San Antonio Texas, a couple of commercials and am on a competitive swimming club all thanks to the research and donations made to the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.  I want to continue to help raise funds to continue the research so kids and adults can change the face of blood cancer.

All donations are greatly appreciated and are tax deductible. They'll not only support LLS-funded research but will help provide critical information and support for patients, and support advocacy for laws to ensure patients can access the care and treatments they need.

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On behalf of blood cancer patients everywhere, thank you for your support!

For more information about LLS, please visit www.lls.org