Ryan, our only son who is 3, was always a child who loved to play. He was always on the go and very rambunctious. He was also a child who got sicker than most. If his sister got a cold, Ryan would get a fever and an infection - he would sweat a lot and his eyes always seemed tired.

We started noticing that he was drinking more than usual and eating less than usual and started to ask to be carried all the time. We asked him why and he just said he was tired.

On November 14, I picked him up from daycare and he had a rash on his arm and a bruise on his tummy. It was then that I decided that I had to take him to his family doctor. I was told that he looked pale and his spleen and liver were enlarged.

So on Friday we went back to have a blood test done and our doctor said he would call over the weekend to let us know if it showed anything. It was 2:15 on Saturday that he called to advise we should go down to Sick Kids Hospital as the test results were inconclusive… so off went. Within an hour of being there we were told we’re probably looking at Leukemia, but they would let us know definitely after the blood test came back.

What seemed like forever was probably just an hour and we were told, your son has Leukemia, we are so sorry.

We hear stories like this all the time and never think it will happen to your own child. We asked ourselves, why us and then we said why not us…if not us it would be another child and another family and that is the last thing anyone wishes for anyone else.

In the days following we were told they could not pinpoint the type of Leukemia Ryan had. At this point we knew it had to be rare as the most common type of Leukemia is identified within 24 hours of diagnosis. The doctors wanted to be sure and we finally found out on November 20th that Ryan had JMML (Juevenille Myelomonocytic Leukemia), a type of Leukemia that affects 1 in 1,000,000 children.

We are learning to cope with the love and support of family and friends. My sister Nicole and friends Craig/Suzanne have worked hard to create a webpage for Ryan. Creating awareness and finding a match is our number one goal.

Alexandria, Ryan’s 18 month old sister is our best chance for a match with 25% probability.

If not, then we’ll need to rely on the bone marrow registry and pray that there is an angel that is his match.

As Ryan is also being transfused every three days and using blood from donors, we are running a drive on the 15th of January in Milton, Ontario to give back in honour of Ryan.

Please take the time to register with onematch.ca as it could be you who will save our son Ryan, or someone else in need of a bone marrow transplant.

Ryan is our one in a million child with the one in a million disease and we are praying every day that he will also be the one in a million that beats it.

Dave and Suzanne Hyland