Harrison’s Beads of Courage: A Boy’s Fight Against T-Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma 1136
It began with what seemed like a simple case of constipation. Harrison complained of feeling full, struggling to empty his bowels. His GP prescribed Movicol, and later lactulose, but nothing changed. Within days, his mother noticed more alarming signs: shallow breathing, slower walking, unusual fatigue. Something deeper was wrong.
Calls to NHS 111 led them to urgent care. Harrison, usually energetic, fell asleep in the waiting room—unheard of for him. His mother pressed her concerns about his breathing, but no tests were carried out. At home, he propped himself on multiple pillows, unable to lie flat, sweating through the night. A sharp pain in his shoulder tip signaled something far more serious than constipation.
By the time they reached hospital again, a triage nurse listened carefully, lifted Harrison’s shirt, and immediately ordered a chest X-ray. The image was unmistakable. His left lung appeared as a complete white-out. Something was gravely wrong.
Within an hour, Harrison was rushed into the operating room. Surgeons inserted a chest drain, releasing two liters of infected fluid and blood. Over three weeks, eight liters were drained. On 27 November 2022, his parents’ worst fears became reality: Harrison was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit with sirens wailing.
At the next hospital, the devastating truth emerged. Doctors confirmed cancer. A few days later, the final diagnosis came: T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma, a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A large mass had taken root in his thorax. His treatment began immediately.
Harrison’s mother recalls the crushing weight of hearing those words. Yet there was no choice but to press forward. “You have to pull up your bootstraps and crack on,” she says. And that is exactly what they did.
But the road was anything but smooth. Harrison carried a blood marker that left him highly susceptible to clots. Soon, clots formed, stealing his mobility. Walking even a few steps became impossible. Stairs were out of the question. He required daily injections of blood thinners—later twice daily. These moments became battles between mother and son, hours of stress and heartbreak. Their relationship strained under the weight of needles.
Relief came with the fitting of a nasogastric tube. As Harrison regained weight, doctors transitioned him to oral blood thinners. His mother describes it as life-changing. “We gained hours back in our day, and peace was almost restored.”
The months that followed were filled with ups and downs. Harrison stopped attending school regularly, relying instead on a tutor. Slowly, as his health improved, he returned part-time. By summer, he attended school two and a half days a week, with home tutoring filling in the gaps. Hospital visits and physiotherapy remained constant, but Harrison was learning to reclaim his life.
One of the greatest sources of comfort came from the Beads of Courage program. Each bead marked a procedure, treatment, or milestone. Blood draws, surgeries, scans, transfusions—all recorded in colorful beads strung together. At the end of each day, Harrison and his mother counted them out and threaded them, building a physical story of his journey.
By 2024, Harrison was in Year 6 and attending school full-time. He delighted in being back with friends, living as close to normal as possible. But the beads remained a cherished ritual. Visitors were shown the strings with pride, each bead explained with detail and dignity. “He holds his head high when explaining his courage beads,” his mother says.
The hospital staff became family. When intensive treatment ended, Harrison confessed he missed the hospital. The nurses and doctors had made him feel safe. Their kindness had turned a place of fear into a place of comfort.
Maintenance treatment allowed life to stabilize. Yet reminders of the battle remained. Harrison’s bead collection grew grand, a rainbow of resilience. When times felt dark, mother and son would revisit them together. They would trace the string, share stories, and remember how far they had come.
Each bead carried meaning, but not all meanings were remembered. That, his mother admits, is their ongoing challenge—relearning the colors. But the true meaning was never lost: courage.
There is still a long road ahead. Maintenance treatment continues, checkups loom, and fears of relapse linger. But Harrison’s progress is undeniable. From the boy who could not lie flat to the boy who proudly walks into school, his transformation is a testament to endurance.
The Beads of Courage helped light the path. For Harrison, they are not just tokens but proof of survival. For his mother, they are anchors—moments to pause, to reflect, to gather strength.
When visitors admire them, Harrison explains his beads with pride. He is not ashamed of his cancer journey. He is defined not by illness but by resilience, by the courage he threads bead by bead.
His mother often looks at the strings and feels both pain and pride. Pain for the suffering he has endured, but pride in the warrior he has become. “When things get tough, we pick up his beads and talk about them. They remind us how far he’s come.”
For Harrison, the beads are more than decoration. They are history. They are evidence. They are survival strung together in color.
And for his family, they are hope—hope that with each bead, with each day, they are moving closer to a future where Harrison’s story is not one of cancer, but one of triumph.
Harrison’s journey continues. The road is long, but his courage is endless. And in every string of beads, one truth shines bright: he is a fighter, and he is never alone.
A New Birthday in Rome: 11-Year-Old Branson Blevins Faces His Bone Marrow Transplant With Hope 1187
There are moments in life when time seems to slow, when hours feel heavy with both fear and anticipation. For 11-year-old Branson Blevins of Robertsdale, Alabama, that moment has come. By midnight tonight in the U.S. (7 a.m. Saturday in Rome), Branson will awaken in his hospital bed, ready for the procedure his family has prayed for: a bone marrow transplant that could give him a second chance at life.
Branson has been fighting acute lymphoblastic leukemia for months. The disease has drained him physically and tested his family emotionally, yet through every setback, hope has remained. That hope now rests on the cells of his mother, Nichole, who will give her son the gift no parent ever dreams of needing to give: her marrow, her lifeblood, her chance to save him.
In her latest update from Rome, Nichole shared the good news everyone had been waiting for. “This morning the doctors came with the news we had been praying for. Branson is clinically perfect and he is officially READY for transplant on Saturday! 🙌🏼”
It wasn’t without last-minute challenges. Nichole herself had to endure double the injections to stimulate her body, because her blood counts weren’t quite where the doctors needed them. But she pushed through, determined to make sure her son could move forward. “Tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. they will begin stem cell collection (an eight-hour blood draw 😵💫), and then Saturday will be Branson’s ‘new birthday’ as he calls it!” she wrote.
For Branson, it’s more than a medical milestone. It’s a rebirth. Children undergoing transplants often mark the day as their “second birthday,” a moment when hope enters their veins through the gift of another’s cells. Branson himself is excited, despite the gravity of what lies ahead. “He’s so excited and our hearts are so hopeful,” Nichole said.
The family’s journey has been long. From diagnosis to treatments, setbacks to recovery, their days have been filled with uncertainty. Now, these next two days carry immense weight. Each moment feels magnified, every prayer intensified. The Blevins family is asking for continued support—that every step of the process goes smoothly, that Branson’s body accepts his mother’s cells, and that his new immune system begins to grow strong enough to fight off the leukemia that has taken so much.
Nichole’s plea is simple but powerful: “Please continue to lift him in prayer that every step goes as smoothly and perfectly as possible all the way through until he is discharged. 🙏🏼🧡”
For those who know Branson’s story—or are only now hearing it—this is a call to action. To pause tonight, to send prayers or positive thoughts across oceans, to let a little boy in Rome know that he is not alone. He will spend the last hours before his transplant scrolling through messages, reading comments, and drawing strength from the love of people near and far.
Tonight, as he drifts to sleep, he will know he has an army behind him. Tomorrow, as his mother’s cells are prepared for infusion, he will know that her love runs deeper than words. And when the doctors call it his “new birthday,” he will know he has been given a gift that is both miraculous and hard-won.
The journey ahead will not be easy. Recovery from a bone marrow transplant is long and filled with challenges. There will be days of weakness, days of pain, and days of waiting for numbers to climb. But for Branson and his family, tomorrow represents hope. Hope that leukemia will finally loosen its grip. Hope that a little boy can return home, to school, to childhood.
So let us join together and lift Branson up. Let us believe with Nichole, with his father Donald, and with their family that this transplant is the turning point. Let us celebrate the courage of a mother giving of herself to save her son. And let us hold fast to the image of an 11-year-old boy, smiling in Rome, ready to call this the start of his new life.
Because tonight is not just another night. It is the eve of Branson’s new birthday. And with every prayer, with every word of encouragement, we can help carry him into tomorrow with strength and hope.
