We first introduced you to Leukemia sufferer Jevon Mahler back in October of last year after he had the double misfortune of having a life threatening illness and then being kicked in the head by a circus horse. He's recovered form the horse kick, but Jevon is still fighting for his life against Leukemia. We've been following the 11-year-old's struggle with the disease regularly, and today we again caught up with him as he continues his fight.
Jevon Mahler,
"I am asking them for help and to anyone out there who can help me fight it." [Crying]
Alfonso Noble,
You think that with help from out there you can beat this thing?
Jevon Mahler,
"Yes."
But while Jevon is ready to fight and he's been doing so for the past two years, it's a war that requires more than heart, to win this one, he needs money. His mother Patricia Lanza says he's been responding to chemotherapy that he's been receiving in Merida, but now he needs a bone marrow transplant. He's been promised treatment in Cuba - and while he's halfway there - his family needs money to conduct tests to see whose marrow matches and who can be a donor. These tests are not available here.
Patricia Lanza, Mother
"Jevon has gotten to the point that he needs a bone marrow transplant and Belize doesn't do the test and to take him out or whosoever to run the test, like my kids or somebody else, it will cost me to take them for the test and over there it is expensive. Right now he is swollen and everything and I am just asking for anybody out there for help so that he can go and get better.
We can take him to Cuba because only that they are waiting for right now because he is at the stage now where he needs a bone marrow transplant to survive and he has already gone to a stage and you can see he is fighting. Cuba has agreed and everything but they need the match to test the donor, somebody out of the family, for a match."
And while the match is what the family waits for Lanza admits that it's an uphill battle and hope is the only thing that has her and Jevon going.
Patricia Lanza,
"Well everyone is a trial, everything you have to try and only God can answer that right now. God has him laying down so with God prayers and everything he will make it because he is strong. He has already fought a long way and everything; he had already gone to the point where they had given up on him and he made it."
Anyone who can assist Jevon can do so at Scotia Bank account number 9100249 or calling his mother at phone 600-1595.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited and Prepared for the internet by Keith Swift
