Deqlan Higgins
09/11/06
8 months old at diagnosis
Pretoria, South Africa
Little Company Of Mary

After being worried about a bruise on Deqlans eye for quite some time, and after taking him to a pediatrician and ophthalmic surgeon, we decided to take things into our own hands and arrange for a scan to check if there was anything stuck in Deqlans left eye - I was devastated when they told me that they had discovered something and would need to do another scan to confirm their suspicions. I never expected to hear the words "your son has a big tumor attached to his adrenal gland, we think he has Neuroblastoma" I was in complete shock & disbelief - how could my beautiful 8 month old baby boy - who was so healthy and happy and full of life be facing this possible diagnosis - we immediately arranged to see a pediatric oncologist - what a wonderful man - Deqlan immediately connected with him - he seems to think that the doctors had made a correct diagnosis, but insisted on doing a lot more testing.

My world and everything in it came crashing down - I couldn’t believe what I was hearing - this was the last thing I expected to hear after just going to do a check up on his eye! I felt helpless lost and destroyed - my life will never ever be the same again. The preceeding is from Deqlans blog the days flollowing his diagnosis.

He was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma on 25 may 2007. Before even starting treatment, we had many complications caused by surgical error, resulting in 2 surgeries to repair blockages in his intestines which was followed by 11 rounds of chemotherapy. What remained of the tumor was removed December, 11th 2007 and was confirmed to be ganglioneuroma!

Deqlan was declared No Evidence of Disease on January 16th of 2008. In October 2008 he was diagnosed on the autism spectrum, but by the grace of god and lots of hard work, he is thriving and excelling at all he loves to do. We thank our lord and savior for the miracles he was performed in our precious Deqlan, whom we adore.

Deqlan loves cars, trains and planes and all the usual stuff boys his age love. He also enjoys reading books, learning the alphabet/numbersand he loves to laugh and have fun! He is a very active boy and loves to be at the beach swimming or even out to sea watching the dolphins.