Paul Falk: He’s all grown up now!

Yesterday was chemo day, and I had the pleasure sitting next to Heather, whom I mentioned before. Heather is  a two-time survivor  – bone cancer at age 13 and now Stage IV breast cancer. She recently raised more than $30,000 from a spinning event she co-hosted and another $30,000  for Susan G. Komen’s Race for the Cure … and she did this on one leg.

 Like Heather, Miracle Survivor Paul Falk was diagnosed with cancer at a very young age. He was nine years old in 1986 when doctors told his parents he had acute myeloid leukemia. It’s an extremely violent form of cancer that forms in the blood marrow and is very fast moving.

 Doctors told his parents, “If Paul lives two weeks, we’ll give him a month. If he lives a month, he might live three. If he lives three months, there’s a good chance he’ll survive six.”

 But Paul was a determined young man, and with the help of his parents, great doctors, and divine intervention, he survived. He was put on an aggressive, experimental protocol that was given to 100 patients around the country. Paul and his mother, Lisa Weber, remember the ordeal:

 Paul: I was given a rather non-sugar-coated diagnosis on the first day I was at the hospital. Survival rates weren’t discussed, but they explained to me what was wrong. I remember saying to the doctor, “It looks like I’m probably going to die.”

 Lisa:  He told Paul, “Well if we have something to say about it, that’s not going to be the case. But you have to fight, too”

 Paul: I didn’t really understand the meaning of death, but I knew it wasn’t an option for me. I wasn’t having any of it.

 Lisa: We never talked about not getting better. We always talked about, “when you get better.” The staff at Children’s Hospital believes in helping children understand what they need to do to get well. At every level, they let them know what is going to happen to them. Paul wanted to participate. They would use a teaching telescope to show him slides from his bone marrow harvest and taught him how to count his red blood cells.

When he returned home and recovered, Paul received a “dream” from a local organization called Cincinnati Dreams Come True. He chose to meet President Reagan, but ended up spending quality time with Vice President George H.W. Bush. The elder Bush had lost a child to cancer and took a special interest in Paul. He dunked cookies in milk with him on Airforce II and made arrangments for the Secret Service to escort Paul and his parents around Washington DC. It was a trip to remember.

As Paul says, “I learned just how miraculous it was that I was able to go on the trip when I later went for my routine monthly checkup. It was a year since I was diagnosed, and we asked the doctor what happened to the other kids in the Denver Protocol. She told us 97 died, 2 were close to death, and one made it – that was me.

“I believe I survived because I fought the disease and stayed positive. I understand now that even in grief and sorrow, God works through all of our experiences.”