“It was my last treatment. I am free, I can breathe and appreciate this incredible opportunity to live!” announced Edu, now 17.
Edu is a kid who wants to be a friend, you know? The first time we talked about Edu was when he found a home for stray cats, even though he was in the hospital.
Edu began his treatment for myeloid leukemia, a type of cancer that causes anemia, infections, bleeding, and fever, when he was just 2 years old. He was hospitalized until he was 4 years old. He was the liveliest child in the hospital. He would get out of bed and wake up the other children to play.
“He was never that sick child that just lied there. He was very charismatic, he talked too much. I remember that he had one of those little wooden horses and spent the day rocking on it,” his mother, Elisa Cardehari, told Razões para Acreditar.
The boy from Anapolis, Brazil was giving clear signs of the teenager he’d grow up to be, collecting gifts for 52 elderly people from a retirement home during Christmas last year.
Edu remained stable for 4 to 6 years. At the age of 7, the disease came back. Again, he began to present spots on his body. Elisa was terrified. “He went back to the same treatment. He spent some time in the hospital, came home, and had chemotherapy,” she said.
At the age of 9, Edu underwent a bone marrow transplant and was able to be discharged. He’d only have to receive periodic treatments every six months.
At 10, he had to undergo another operation. Edu had to be strong to withstand the lumbar puncture, a procedure performed without anesthesia, making it extremely painful. Edu seemed fine again until he was 15, at which point he had to go back to fighting.
“He started to get nosebleeds again. I already knew. We went to the hospital. That’s when he met you from Reasons to Believe. He was in the hospital for 22 days. He wanted to leave and only left because I signed a liability waiver. I had to do his treatment at home,” his mom said.
Elisa stopped her life to take care of her son at home. She took a technical nursing course. She wanted to go to college very badly, but she chose to become a technician because it was cheaper. It was enough. “It helped me a lot, to give an injection, to prepare an IV, to get medicine. He was very weak,” she said.
Edu wanted to stop the leukemia treatment, but thanks to his mother’s encouragement, he continued.
“Miraculously, all my tests were positive. Normal immunity. I had the platelets and leukocytes of a normal person. That had never happened before,” the boy said to the Brazilian website.
Elisa was speechless when the doctor said Edu was cured of leukemia. Fortunately, the news was good and certainly any mother in Elisa’s place would have a similar reaction. It’s the kind of news that we always dream of with our fingers crossed but when it arrives we don’t know how to react.
“It was my last treatment. I am free. I can breathe and appreciate this incredible opportunity to live!” celebrated Edu, now 17.