Carson Gage Arreola was born on October 29, 2009. He was an energetic 6 year old who loved his stuffed Tiggers, dinosaurs, dancing, drawing, baseball, motorcycles, monster trucks, his little brother and sister and his friends. He never met a stranger and made friends easily. He was outgoing, funny, smart, kind, artistic, fearless and happy. He had a zest for life that was contagious and refreshing. It was impossible to be in a bad mood around him.
We took Carson to urgent care on May 15, 2016 to see why after two rounds of antibiotics, his strep throat would not go away. After two blood draws at urgent care, we were sent to the ER for 3 more blood draws. It was there that we received the devastating news that Carson most likely had leukemia. Carson’s initial white blood cell count was 400,000. Due to his dangerously high potassium levels, he was rushed to Sunrise Children’s Hospital where he would have ports placed and begin dialysis immediately. Carson was placed under anesthesia for the port placement and would never wake up again. On May 16th, Carson was diagnosed with T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
We spent the next 3 days watching our little boy’s body slowly shut down. He experienced breathing trouble, kidney problems and heart arrhythmias. At 3:30am on Wednesday May 18th his heart stopped twice and the doctors were able to revive him. At 2:58pm, after doctors tried everything humanly possible to save him, we held our little boy as he quietly went to heaven.
Team Carson was formed in Carson’s memory to raise awareness of childhood and blood cancers. Through the sale of our Team Carson hats, a portion of all proceeds will go towards supporting local childhood and blood cancer charities.