St. Baldrick's Event at Martin's East

Sunday, March 23rd marked our third St. Baldrick's fundraiser of 2014. We were especially excited for for this day to arrive because Jaxsen was one of the children who was going to be honored on stage at the event. We knew that we would be overcome with emotion at the fundraiser because just two short years ago, Jaxsen made his first appearance up on that stage, but for a very different reason. When he was just 11 months old, Jax became the youngest St. Baldrick's shavee and had his first haircut on stage in front of hundreds of people. Fast forward two years, and he was on stage being honored for his bravery in his fight against cancer. What a difference two years can make.

The event started by having all of the honored kids walk up on stage with one of their parents. There were 32 children that were being honored at the event, but only 16 of them were present. Jax, of course, was one of them! While up on stage, we were able to stand next to one of our little friends that we've known for years, Scarlett. Scarlett is a little girl who battled AML a few years ago and WON! She was the little girl that Jax honored by getting his head shaved when he was younger. Reagan from  the radio station Mix 106.5 came on stage with the children and told the audience the story of each child. He told everyone about Scarlett's story, and then he moved on to us. When he started telling Jaxsen's story, I immediately teared up. It's one thing to write about Jaxsen's journey and talk to our close friends and family members about it, but it was overwhelming to hear someone else talk about it. He told the audience that Jax was Scarlett's friend and that he was the youngest person to ever have his head shaved at the event. He spoke of how recently Jax was diagnosed, and how he has been a brave boy during all of his treatments. Everyone clapped and cheered for Jax after his story was finished. And they all laughed when Reagan told them that Jax was wearing some pretty awesome dinosaur shoes!

After all of the honored kids were introduced, we left the stage and found our families. Nick's mom, aunt, and cousin came to the event to show their support, and so did my dad, step-mom, and sister. Nick was one of the last people who was scheduled to get shaved at the event, so we had a lot of time to walk around the fundraiser with our family. We walked over to the wall of posters that the organizer of the event made for each child, and quickly found Jaxsen's poster. We then took Jax over to the game area and bought him some tickets so that he could play some of the games. He immediately ran over to the mini-golf game and tried getting a hole-in-one. Unfortunately, even with daddy's help, he wasn't able to make one. But the person who was running the game kindly let Jax keep swinging his golf club since there weren't any other kids in line. He played a few more games and won some prizes, but he soon decided that he would much rather run around the event like a crazy person instead! Luckily (for him) there were lots of other kids there who had the same goal in mind. He quickly found one of his old friends from daycare and the two of them spent more than thirty minutes chasing each other in the hallway. Those little boys sure did have a ton of energy!

We saw a lot of our friends at the event, so we spent some time catching up with them since we haven't had too much time to socialize since Jax was diagnosed. It was great spending a few moments having actual adult conversations! We almost forgot what that felt like :)

It was soon time for Nick to make his way on to the stage to have his head shaved. He wanted to have Jax sit with him when he got the haircut, so he grabbed the little dude and made his way into the barber's chair. We told Jax that daddy was going to get a haircut and that he wouldn't have any hair left afterwards. Jax laughed and said, "You're going to look like Dillion, daddy!" (Dillion is Jaxsen's 2-year-old friend who sported a buzz cut a few months ago). Jax watched with curiosity as the barber shaved Nick's hair off. When clumps of hair started falling down, Jax reached out his little hands and tried catching them! He eventually gave up and just started staring at Nick with fascination. When the haircut was finished, Nick and Jax held hands and walked off the stage.

   

Overall, the St. Baldrick's event at Martin's East raised $122,000 for childhood cancer research this year. WOW! Team Scarlett, the team that we were proudly a part of, raised a whooping $33,000! In the three years that Team Scarlett has been participating in St. Baldrick's, they have raised over $100,000!! What an amazing support system and group of people.  As parents of a child who will benefit from that research, we are so grateful of everyone's generosity and dedication. We look forward to the day when all of this research will result in a cure for childhood cancers so that no more precious babies have to suffer.