JJ Thomas is in 10th grade at Dublin Jerome High School. He’s a mild-mannered, upbeat student with an aptitude for cross country, basketball and guitar. He plans on running track this season – the ever-daunting 400-meter race is his favorite. We joke about how he must be crazy to run such a treacherous event.
But for JJ, 400 meters is nothing compared to the journey he’s been on these past three years.
When JJ was a seventh-grader at Grizzell Middle School, he was diagnosed with mixed phenotype acute leukemia. This normal, smart, healthy boy’s world came to an alarming halt.
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” JJ says. “I thought, ‘There’s no way this can happen to me.’ Cancer just didn’t seem like it would ever be a part of my life.”
Michelle and Luke Thomas, JJ’s parents, were in complete shock as well.
“He got strep throat and we just thought it was mono, because he didn’t seem that sick,” Michelle recalls. “But then we got a call and it wasn’t, ‘Hey, come in because we want to talk to you about this possibility,’ it was, ‘We think he has leukemia. Pack your bags and go to children’s hospital now.’”
First comes the diagnosis – but then what? Do you tell people? Do you try to keep quiet until uncertainties settle?
“Not at all,” Michelle says. “We told people right away. We have two other children, Larkin and Zach, so we had to call our close friends and make sure they were taken care of. We also sought out the church so that everyone could begin praying.”
Luke agrees.
“The first piece of advice we received upon the diagnosis was to not be afraid to accept help,” he says. “There’s a lot of uncertainty and fear, initially. We had to be willing to ask for and receive help.”
In one of the most chilling moments of their lives, the family was met with overwhelming warm support from the community. When JJ had to shave his head for treatment, the barber etched in “JJ Strong,” a phrase that soon popped up all over Dublin. To show JJ they had his back, some of his best friends shaved their heads, too.
Help Has No Boundaries
With illness comes boundaries and rules from doctors. JJ was pretty much quarantined inside his house because his immune system was compromised from the intense cancer treatment. While his mom initially worried he wouldn’t have enough space to hang out, a team of neighbors, friends and family came to the rescue and tackled their basement, which was mainly used for storage at the time. It was cleaned out, sanitized, painted and restored.
With three children in three separate Dublin schools (now 19-year-old, Larkin at Dublin Jerome, JJ at Grizzell Middle School and 14-year-old, Zach at Deer Run Elementary), the amount of support tripled. Larkin’s basketball team wore orange shoelaces representing leukemia, sold JJ Strong wristbands at lunch and held a Hoops for a Cure event.
Principal of Deer Run Elementary, Susann Wittig, organized a donation jar that helped Zach buy games and activities for JJ to entertain himself with. All around, there were always cards, videos and gifts being sent to show that people cared.
One thing you don’t want to think about tackling while going through such a strenuous battle: homework. But Grizzell social studies teacher, Jim Hull, made school as painless as possible for JJ, always going the extra mile to make sure he was not only staying caught up, but being included in everyday life back in the classroom.
“He’d show videos of classmates and projects and what was going on at school,” Michelle says. “He was totally flexible and made sure that JJ could be caught up for when he returned back to school.”
JJ spent an entire calendar year away from school before the time came when he was given the OK to return.
“It was very scary,” says Michelle. “We’d contained him in this safe bubble to keep him healthy for so long – but Principal Corrinne Evans was phenomenal and led the way to make sure everything was sanitized and safe for him.”
Evans was meticulous about having up-to-date clean filters, hand sanitzers in every classroom and even played videos during lunchtime about the importance of keeping healthy and clean.
“She made me feel like we were a part of her family and that the whole school was there for him,” Michelle says. “It eased my mind so much.”
JJ was apprehensive about returning to school, too.
“Going back, I was nervous. I hadn’t been in a school environment for a whole year – I’d just been hanging out with my mom,” he says, laughing. “But the first day back was great. I found out my friends had saved a lunch seat specifically for me the entire time I was away, so I finally got to sit in that spot with them.”
March 2, JJ rang the Nationwide Children’s Hospital bell, celebrating the end of his treatment. The road was difficult, but even through it all, the one word the Thomas family repeats is, “thankful.”
“We were blessed to have such a strong circle of support from the beginning,” Luke says.
“We felt so much love from the Dublin community,” Michelle agrees. “Even though it was so hard, knowing we had people to fall back on got us through those tough times.”
As for getting back to “normal,” the word means something entirely different to the family now.
“A good day then would be a bad day now,” JJ says. “Every day seems like such a good day, because I’m in such a better place than I was before.”
Mallory Arnold is an editor. Feedback welcome at marnold@cityscenemediagroup.com.
