Once Upon a Wish (36 page)

As excitement and adrenaline sizzled inside of Dakota later that night, thoughts of all the places he would ride on his Gator dizzying his mind, he forced himself to fall asleep so he was ready for the big day ahead of him.

When he, Henry, Sharon, and Riley arrived at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston the next day, Dakota was immediately started on chemo, hoping to wipe away any remaining leukemia cells and demolishing his old immune system to replace it with Riley’s.

A month later, with Dakota’s numbers moving in the right direction, his condition improving just enough, it was time to harvest Riley’s cells, time to start the process of saving Dakota’s life.

Sitting at the foot of Riley’s bed, Dakota watched as hospital staff placed a mask over his younger brother’s face—something he had been through a hundred times—and he instigated a competition that he knew would take Riley’s mind off of being put under.

“Let’s see who can count longer,” Dakota said right before the machine was turned on.

When Riley got to twelve, Dakota pushed even further.

“Thirteen … fourteen …”

Riley’s eyes closed against his will, and Dakota closed his, too, saying a silent prayer that the cells they were taking would save his life. On transplant day, when doctors hung a bag of cells, Riley’s lifesaving cells, above Dakota on his IV tree, Sharon prayed over them—prayed that those cells would work as God’s army, march into Dakota’s veins, swim through his blood, give him back his life. Each drip crawled through the clear tube, forcing its way into Dakota’s body, demanding acceptance, creating life.

Dakota’s eyes moved up and down with every drop, watching intently as Riley’s cells fell into his body. His parents watched, too, and Sharon took her eyes away only to look at the sun as it crawled in through the shaded window, warming the room and her spirits. It was the first time in a long time she had actually noticed the sun, cared about its existence.

Things of beauty had been hiding for months beneath the selfish darkness, bleeding agony, which had consumed them. Sharon paid close attention to the movement of the sun, its morning dance, as though it were the first time she had ever seen it. This was a good day, a day of renewal, of new life. She felt it in every ounce of her being.

They all did.

When the last drops seeped in, the bag above hanging clear, it was time to wait. At 4:30 every morning, nurses came in to draw
Dakota’s blood, and again, Sharon prayed. She prayed for signs of Riley’s cells in Dakota’s blood, and after twenty-one days, that prayer was answered—his red blood cell count was going up.

After a month and a half, with counts continuing to increase, Dakota could leave the hospital with daily visits. It was his first step toward getting back to the Gator. Thinking about the friends he would take and the places he would go, kept his mind clear, free, during those long days and nights at the hospital, just waiting.

“I can’t wait to take Zach and Brandon and Riley and Justin on long rides,” Dakota said of his brother and best friends. He talked every day about riding into the woods, hunting with his Gator, and visiting Moccasin Gap in the Ozark Mountains.

When Dakota was released from the hospital, he, Riley, and their parents stayed in what they called The Treehouse, a small, above-garage apartment at Sharon’s brother’s Houston home. Its soft white walls were somehow different from the bright, sterile shade in the hospital. This white was inviting, as was the old-fashioned, claw-foot tub in place of a cold, tile shower; books that had nothing to do with cancer; contemporary art hanging on the walls rather than posters of the body’s systems; and meals served on plates rather than trays. The Treehouse was just minutes away from MD Anderson, making daily visits easy and convenient.

The normal life Dakota was about to re-enter started in Houston, where he hung out and watched
Survivor
every Thursday night with good family friends, the Johnstons, played games and ate pizza with his Grandma Pat and Pa Pa Tom every Sunday night, and spent the weekends—when his counts were good and his energy was up—riding go-carts, visiting the zoo, going to the park, and playing golf, the only sport he never had to give up.

One day, he got a call from The Point, a classic rock radio station based out of Little Rock, Arkansas, during its annual Make-A-Wish
Foundation fundraiser. Dakota Hawkins had become a household name across the state of Arkansas, with local and statewide news coverage of his condition, his progress, and his story.

At the MD Anderson clinic, where he went for regular tests and blood draws, Dakota sat at the nurse’s station for a phone interview with the radio station’s DJs about his progress, his transplant, his wish, and all the specifics of the Gator.

“You know, man, it’s like a pimped up four-wheeler,” Dakota said, smiling at the nurses surrounding him, who threw their heads back with laughter, clapping their hands, catching their breaths.

“A pimped up …” the DJ couldn’t even finish the sentence. He and the other DJs were in hysterics at the description.

When the laughter faded, Dakota looked down at the ground, fingers intertwined in the cord of the phone, his face serious.

“I’d like to thank Make-A-Wish for making my wish come true,” he said, and Sharon’s heart instantly became filled with happiness. She imagined her son’s voice in the ears of thousands, driving their cars, sitting in their offices or homes, listening to his story. The sincere gratitude in her son’s voice reflected how strongly he felt about the gift he had received and echoed his love for the Gator with which he would soon reunite.

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Everyday checkups at MD Anderson turned into every three-day checkups, and after one hundred days, Dakota was released and sent home. The cancer was gone, his counts were up, and his organs were healthy.

Two weeks after settling home, he and his family went to Colorado on an all-expense-paid, five-day trip to a dude ranch near Steamboat Springs with nine other families, a doctor, and a nurse
from MD Anderson. With the other kids, Dakota and Riley explored the mountain ranges on horses during the day, played kickball in the evenings, and enjoyed cookouts, barn dances, and dips in their cabin’s hot tub.

On their bus ride back to the airport, as they made their way toward Denver, nearing the Continental Divide, small, white flurries turned into what looked like the insides of a Christmas snow globe.

“Stop the bus!” Dakota shouted, and the driver slowly pulled to the side of the road. “Let’s have a snowball fight!”

That’s our Dakota
, Sharon thought, grinning.

He and the other kids, all cancer patients, survivors, poured from the bus and into the snow, shoveling handfuls into balls and launching them like little cannonballs. They dusted the bus, its driver, the doctor, and nurse, one another, in white—all while laughing, living in that moment, undefined by cancer, in its cool freedom.

Sharon and Henry watched, smiles dancing on their faces, frozen in that moment of time. And while nothing could take away Sharon’s happiness, the heaviness in her chest, its pull through her belly, was something she could not deny. They were about to return to MD Anderson for a bone marrow aspiration—the deepest, most accurate cancer-detecting test—and all she could do was pray for good results.

Once again, her prayer was answered. Dakota was still cancer-free and Riley’s cells, in all of their determination, remained a friend to his brother’s body. Dakota could go home and continue that life of normalcy, of freedom, that had started in Houston just a few months earlier.

A peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line in his chest was the only thing keeping Dakota from enjoying one of his favorite past times—swimming—so he had a decision to make. He
could leave it in as a way for doctors to insert medicines and draw blood every month without having to poke him, or he could have it removed and get poked for those purposes every month.

He wanted it out—needed what was, in his mind, permanent detachment from cancer.

After healing from surgery to remove the line, Dakota went with Sharon to his friend Chad’s house for an afternoon dip, his first swim all summer. Chad and his family, who welcomed Dakota to their home at any time, were not home that afternoon, so Sharon soaked in the enjoyment of watching her son dive from the board, flip from the sides, and plunge deep into the water.

“I feel so free,” he said with a smile, looking right at her before ducking under the water, swimming quickly to the other side. He got out of the pool, stood on the diving board in his bright yellow swim shorts, and smiled again at his mom. A soft layer of golden hair that had just started to grow back gleamed like the sun, mirrored his shorts, became living proof that her Dakota was here to stay.

He’s the picture of health
, Sharon thought to herself, smiling through tears as Dakota jumped back into the pool.

As a family, they traveled to Silver Dollar City theme park that summer, the resort town of Branson, Missouri, and to Moccasin Gap—a place where Dakota, Riley, and Henry rode four-wheelers—with its endless streams and twenty-eight miles of ATV and horse trails weaving through the hills and hollows of Arkansas’s Ozark Mountains.

As they did every year, Dakota, Riley, and Henry prepared for the upcoming deer hunting season at a deer camp in south Arkansas. They searched for signs of deer, inspecting bushes for places they might have rested and trees for traces of rubbing. They scoped out areas close to water that would quench the deer’s thirst and analyzed
trees for their height and potential for deer spotting. Dakota would bring his Gator to collect their fallen prey, and his anticipation for October, deer hunting season, started on their three-hour drive home.

When the summer was over, Dakota registered for eighth grade and, once again, excelled with straight As, advanced placement classes, and a position on the varsity basketball team. He attended school dances, birthday parties, church on Sundays, and rode his Gator often with friends. He had returned to his old, normal life, where cancer was just a nightmare from which he had woken.

During Dakota’s next five monthly appointments, he received a clean bill of health—his cells were dead; Riley’s were thriving. The front door to cancer’s old home was closed, but like a sneaky robber, a malicious intruder, it found its way back in and hid behind corners inside Dakota’s body.

“It’s like hide-and-seek,” Dr. Becton explained to Dakota and Sharon during their sixth monthly checkup, where cancer cells had slowly come out from around those corners. “We found little, bitty cancer cells hiding within your cells.”

Cancer cells.
Those words were supposed to be gone from their lives.
How can this be happening again?

Sharon didn’t speak her thoughts; she didn’t mutter a word. And neither did Dakota. They sat in silence, the heaviness of Dr. Becton’s words setting like stone in their hearts.

It was time for chemo, once again.

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