GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Medically speaking, 3-year-old Paxton Florek has already been through more than most adults will ever face. Rounds of high-dose chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, and a 2-year clinical trial saved his life. Now, he's knocking down milestone after milestone, all while "Team Pax" is cheering him on.
At only 10 months, Paxton had a golf ball size tumor at the base of his brain and spinal cord. To make matters worse, it was an embryonal tumor with multilayered rosettes, which is very rare, and not accompanied by a good prognosis.
Little games for kids that seem simple are a big accomplishment for Paxton. The 3-year-old is walking, stumbling, and even moving our camera.
"He's our walking miracle," said Anna Florek, Paxton's Mom.
"He has blossomed, and he is doing things that I had sort of tried to prepare them that I wasn't sure if he was gonna be able to do, like walk," said Dr. Rebecca Loret de Mola, Pediatric Oncologist at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.
Pax loves exploring, his wide blue eyes inquisitive. Dad, Luke, takes his little guy outside to catch up on some parts of the world he's missed. Rewind time, and it's hard to recognize Pax as the same baby fighting at Helen DeVos.
"He's doing PT right now, but he's doing OT, feeding therapy right now, school two days a week," said Luke Florek, Paxton's Dad.
Dad, continued, "some days he was puking like 20 times a day from chemo and there was like one minute at a time and what's this next hour going to look like. We focused on the positive though because many days, it was hard in the hospital."
Taking things one day at a time, Mom and Dad altered their schedules, doing life out of a hospital room.
"They were struggling with the news as any parent would be. But I always remember that they were, you know, so what are we doing next? We, we understand the situation, we understand that he has a very bad tumor. But what are we doing next? How are we moving on. And I think that this is what gives us a lot of strength to continue," said Dr. Michael Bercu, Pediatric Neurosurgeon at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.
"We just remember having fun with the nurses, and laughing, we tried to make our time there seem normal to Paxton, we never showed him that we were sad. I mean, for us we felt that like that would be too much of a burden," said Anna Florek.
Happily back at home, the family still has some hurdles to climb. Paxton is g-tube fed, has hearing aids, and is non-verbal.
"He's defied the odds, I will tell you, I've taken care of a handful of kids with EMR. And he's, he's my only survivor," said Dr. Loret de Mola.
"All the kisses we get, that's all within the last like three months I would say, just the emotion that has kind of come out of him. He was a different him coming out of the hospital. We've had probably three different kids in one child," said Anna Florek.
All those milestones, games, and moments seem like little things, but they are the best big things for Mom and Dad, "he's just been kind of breaking records and kind of setting the standards of what can happen," said Luke Florek.
And those moments are milestones for everyone on Team Pax too, "This is a big group of people who know this kid and we it brings so much joy to see the videos of him like running around out their, their house and making the sounds that he's making and seeing the things that he joined because when he was here, he was a baby. And he was super sick. And he, he wasn't doing any of those things," said Dr. Loret de Mola, she continued, "he is like, he is a beacon of hope for me."
Paxton was treated on a clinical trial. The doctors at Helen DeVos says his treatment on a clinical trial is going to help countless cancer kids still coming to the hospital.
He gets a scan every 6 months, and they are still clear. Right now, Mom, Dad and Paxton are taking their first big vacation to Montana.
