Maryland Trek
with Justin Berk
Age: 3
Type of Cancer: T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)
Treatment Status: In treatment; walking, running, and climbing again
Lincoln was 18 months old when bruises started showing up that wouldn't go away. His pediatrician treated other possibilities first, but the bruises stayed—and then little red dots called petechiae appeared all over his body. Bloodwork led to a transfer to Sinai, and there his parents got the news: their always-smiling, always-moving little boy had T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
“It's just not what you would expect,” his mom, Rebecca, said. “They're still running around and playing, acting normal, eating normal. And then to find out they have cancer—it just took a while to sink in.” The next day, his doctor walked them through the road ahead: roughly 27 months of treatment.
The road turned out to be even harder than the map. During his second round, while Rebecca held him in a hospital room waiting for chemo, Lincoln had a seizure in her arms. “That's something I don't think I'll ever forget,” she said. The cause was a rare fungal brain infection—a side effect of one of his chemo medicines—and it meant a transfer to Johns Hopkins and two brain surgeries, with hospital stays of 40 and 30 days. The following summer brought a week in the pediatric cardiac unit for fluid around his heart—spanning both the Fourth of July and his dad's birthday. Before Christmas, he broke both legs in the same spot within two weeks of each other. Between the chemo, the infection, and the surgeries, Lincoln lost the ability to walk for over a year.
And through every bit of it, he smiled. “He always had the biggest smile on his face, no matter what was going on,” his dad said. “You give him a little toy—'Thank you! This makes me so happy.'” Rebecca added: “Even with his head wrapped up from brain surgery, I never once saw him anything but happy. Just seeing his positive demeanor helped all of us get through it.” Their faith carried them too, with their church—and churches of friends—lifting Lincoln up in prayer. “I was scared at certain points,” Rebecca said, “but I never felt like he would be taken away. God has a purpose and a plan for him.”
A few days before his third birthday, Lincoln started walking again on his own. Now he's running, climbing, and acting like a typical three-year-old—playing outside with cars and trains, and shadowing his favorite person in the world: his big sister, Lorelai. Through his treatment, she voluntarily wore a mask to school so she wouldn't bring anything home to him, drew him Cookie Monster and Mickey Mouse pictures for his hospital room, and told her friends to pray for him. “She just kept saying, 'I know he's going to be okay,'” Rebecca said. And soon Lincoln will have someone new to smile at: a baby sibling arriving any day now.
Just In Power Kids provided parking passes through the family's many hospital stays, a care package, and something less tangible: community. “It's nice to have an organization that really understands what it all entails,” Rebecca said. “Because if you don't go through it, you can't understand.”
Their message to other families comes straight from Lincoln: “Don't ever give up.” Or as his dad put it: “He's a fighter. That's for sure.”
