On Nov. 9, the world changed for 12-year-old Jeffrey Amos. He was diagnosed with bone cancer.
Jeffrey”s mother, Monchella Miller, had taken him to the emergency room because he was complaining of pain in his arm. He”d broken it several months ago, and it wasn”t healing properly. Jeffrey was referred to a specialist, who found cancer in his rotator cuff.
Tired but still cheerful, Jeffrey sat in his room at St. Jude Children”s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., Thursday, where he has been for two weeks, and reminisced about school.
At Cook Elementary Fine Arts School, Jeffrey enjoyed the basketball skills team, teachers, principals, special classes, playgrounds and field days.
“He was happy, playful and loved to play football and be outside playing, playing games,” Miller said.
Jeffrey was scheduled to stay at the hospital a week and return home for a week, but chemotherapy treatments made him too ill for the three-hour trip.
“He was sick when they were doing the treatments. He was throwing up a lot,” his mother said. “He was kind of down, but he feels a little bit better now.”
Teachers and students at Cook found out about the diagnosis in mid-November and immediately began looking for ways to help. Already selling $4 tieless shoelaces, called Y-ties, as a fundraiser for new P.E. equipment, Coach Amy Martin decided to give the proceeds to Jeffrey and his family. The school will sell the Y-ties through Friday.
“It”s amazing how the kids just rallied around him,” said Lois Kappler, principal of the school. “Our funds have doubled because our children at our school are just so supportive of him and want to make things easier for his family.”
“Although Cook is a large school– 850 students, 100-plus faculty/staff — we are a close community,” Martin said.
Jeffrey”s mother, father, grandmother and aunts are rotating their stays in Memphis. His 5-year-old brother, for now, is staying with an aunt so he doesn”t miss school.
“He knows he”s sick, but he doesn”t know what”s going on with him,” Miller said of Jeffrey”s brother.
Though he misses home, Jeffrey gets happy reminders from Columbus in the form of care packages, visits, cards and phone calls.
“I just want to say I thank Joe Cook and Coach Martin for doing what she did for him and the school and (other) people who have helped,” Miller said.
Jeffrey”s Cook family is glad to help.
“Jeffrey is a kind, gentle, caring young man. He has a smile that lights up a room! It”s hard to explain how special he is …” Martin said.
Are you sad about being sick?
Not really.
What keeps you in high spirits?
I”m really not that sad about being sick. Now that I know I get a little sick (after treatments), I just don”t worry about it.
What do you miss most?
My home and my school and my friends and family.
What do you miss about school?
My classes and friends, my teachers and all the teachers there and the basketball skills team. And that”s all.
What is the basketball skills team?
It”s just like, you like dribble the ball, and you do tricks with the ball. You put it between your legs and stuff. And we had performed at Mississippi State. That was last year.
What do you want for Christmas this year?
I haven”t made up my mind quite yet what I want for Christmas, but I”m thinking of some stuff.
What are a few things on the list?
An iPod and a mini-laptop. And that”s all.
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