Childhood Cancer Awareness Month Hero
CAMERON JOHNSON
Neuroblastoma
Patient
Patient
Before Cameron was diagnosed, he was energetic and very smart. He was reading books at 2 years old. He loved learning and playing video games.
In September, just after his 4 birthday, he woke up with his eye swollen. I took him that same day to urgent care and was told he had bad allergies and he was given eye drops. A week later it hadn’t gotten any better, so I took him back. This time I was told he had a bad sinus infection. He was given antibiotics. Two weeks later his eye wasn’t swollen but the left side of his face was swollen, and his under eye was dark almost like a black eye. I made him an appointment to see his primary doctor.
When I took him in for his appointment, they asked me so many questions. They asked if I had hit him because they had never seen anything like it. By that time he had also started having fevers that wouldn’t go away. They gave me a handwritten note to take to the ER for a CT scan.
When I took him to the ER at Loma Linda with the note, they refused to do the scan. They said they didn’t want to expose him to radiation. They said it was just a really bad sinus infection and fluid in his sinuses. I was given more antibiotics. By this time it has been two months of going to doctors and nothing was being done. The day I was supposed to have my cesarean I didn’t go and decided to take Cameron to a different Urgent care, Kaiser in Fontana. I told the doctor about all the times I had been going back and forth to different doctors. Its was there when they did blood work and scans. We were there for hours waiting for results. I was nine months pregnant so they told me to sit down. I knew the news wasn’t going to be good. She said “do you believe in God?” and I told her yes. Then she told me that my son has a tumor. I panicked, but tried to stay calm so my son wouldn’t see me sad. We were transported to Kaiser Sunset where we spent the next couple months. I had my baby on one floor while my son was having a port surgically put in for treatment and surgery for a biopsy.
November 2016 our lives were turned upside down. I had a new born and a son that was about to fight for his life. He spent months in the hospital. Holidays, birthdays, you name it. Chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and stem cell transplant has caused a lot of changes for him. He had loss of hearing in both ears, vision loss, and he had to learn to walk all over again. But he has always remained in good spirits. If he’s not playing games or making them then he is coding to making animations.
– Tasia Johnson, mother