September 4th is dedicated to our hero Axel
Hi, I am Axel Galindo’s mom and I am going to tell you the story of my hero and warrior.
Axel was born very healthy, thankfully, but when he was just three years old, he began to complain of pain in his stomach. As parents, we thought he was constipated and we gave him some medicine. The medication didn’t help and he continued to complain of the pain, which had intensified. On September 15th, we took him to the emergency room at Kaiser Permanente of Moreno Valley; never did I imagine that a simple stomach pain would lead to the horrible and ugly news I received. My son had a huge tumor on his left kidney known as Wilms Tumor.
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At that moment, I felt that I was going to die. Just hearing that awful news and knowing the suffering that was to come for my child. That same night he was transferred by ambulance to Kaiser in Fontana where he began his treatments. His first surgery was on September 22, 2014 where a catheter was placed and his kidney was removed. Surgery was a total success. He received six days of radiation at Kaiser in Los Angeles and after that, my son began coughing and had a weird sound in his chest. The cancer had returned, this time to his lungs. They began chemotherapy and on August 10, 2015, he was taken into surgery for the second time where they hoped to remove the tumors in his lungs. The surgery lasted 5 hours and they removed 21 tumors from his lungs. Following the surgery, he was given another week of radiation. They continued his chemotherapy and medication, but about two months after his surgery, I received some bad news. The chemotherapy was not working and instead of making Axel better it was making him worse. They decided to change the chemotherapy and gave him six different chemo’s daily, all of which were extremely strong, for about a week. My boy was strong and he continued to fight every single day.
On February 11, 2016, they gave me the bad news that the chemotherapy were not helping Axel and there were no longer any treatment options available for him. They sent us home that day and the doctors would come to the house to see him. They assigned him a nurse, who was with him 24 hours, but Axel had lost his humor and in less than a week had no desire to play or do anything. Axel loved Mickey Mouse and he wouldn’t even react to his Mickey Mouse anymore. On August 20, 2016, Axel became an angel. He left leaving us a life experience of bravery and fight. He taught us that we need to fight; even for what we believe is unattainable. I know he is now in a better place where there is no more pain, where angels and God surround him. But, here on earth, we miss him so much and know he will forever live in our hearts.
To my hero, with love, your mom, Yami.
