Holden Mullen, who is two and a half, just finished his chemotherapy after being treated for a Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid Tumor (ATRT).
“From the original diagnosis, nobody really expects to get that news and when you’re told your child has cancer, you don’t really know what to do,” said Chad Mullen. “And fortunately for us, we’ve got a great group of friends and family to get through it. Some advice we got early on was to take it one day at a time, and we really had to take it one day at a time. And fortunately for us here we are, just finished chemo. I feel like we’re coming out on the other side of this and we couldn’t feel luckier than we do right now.”
Lemonade Stand
Holden’s family held a lemonade stand to raise money for their own organization, Holden’s Warrior Wheels, so they can provide wagons for newly diagnosed children.
“So this is the second year we do the lemonade stand. Last year we just wanted to do something to give back to Lurie Children’s Hospital where he’s being treated, and we had a lemonade stand that raised about $1,100 that we gave to Lurie Children’s tumor team for cancer research,” said Mullen. “And now that we’ve had a year and a half to go through his treatment, we’ve really relied on his wagon because he’s not walking yet. And what a great way to try to give back to some of the families if we can raise the money to give them something that was so important to Holden during his treatment. This really was a savior for him. It seems really simple, but he looked forward to getting his wagon every time we got to the hospital and we hope other kids will be able to enjoy that same thing.”
Support from Friends and Family
“As a parent you don’t really have an option, you’re not given the option whether to do this or not. You just have to do it and grind out and that’s what we’ve done. And lucky for us we’ve been able to grind it out with the support of great friends and great family,” said Mullen.
Naperville News 17’s Aysha Ashley Househ reports.
