As 7-year-old faced death, a town rallied
Chess Strategy
MERRIMACK 'C Throughout the Carlson home are notes written on small pieces of paper. On the computer monitor, a note says, 'I Love You, Mom.' In the family room, little drawings are hidden behind magazines and on coffee tables.
'Nathan was everywhere,' said his mother, Tammy, while holding a nameplate that Nathan made for his bicycle when he came home from the hospital a few weeks ago. 'He left an impression on people. He left people with memories.'
Nathan died Sunday, but his mother knows that her son will live on through all the people he affected in just seven years.
She said she has received numerous e-mails from friends and people who she hadn't met, telling her how Nathan inspired them to volunteer as organ donors.
In April, 333 people were added to the United Network for Organ Sharing list as possible bone marrow donors because of a bone marrow drive that Tammy and a family friend, Lindsey Finken, held at the St. James United Methodist Church.
Since Nathan was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in December, he tried to learn as much about his disease as he could. Tammy said her son was adamant about making people aware of all the children waiting to receive blood and organ transplants. Tammy said her son would look around the hospital and ask why there weren't more people willing to help sick kids like him.
'I only need one person. Is that too much to ask for?' his mother remembered him asking.
Acute myeloid leukemia is much more common in adults. According to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, 15 to 20 percent of all childhood leukemia cases.
While Nathan was in Children's Hospital Boston, Tammy and her husband, Eric, were switching off staying with Nathan. From Sunday through Friday, Eric would stay in the family's Merrimack home with their 5-year-old son, Ryan, while Tammy lived at the hospital. On Friday came the 'Big Switch.'
While it was overwhelming for the whole family not to spend much time together, Tammy said this was the best situation so Ryan could still go to school and Eric was able to go to work.
'I don't know where the energy comes from,' said Tammy. 'You just do it because you have to, because it's your kid.'
Throughout Nathan's hospital stay, he never let his disease deter him from what he wanted to do. As a Cub Scout, Nathan kept earning badges. Tammy remembers a nurse teaching Nathan how to play chess so he could earn a badge.
Nathan's karate instructor taped the lessons, so he could catch up when he recovered.
'He wasn't just in the hospital and people could visit to him if they could get to it,' said Finken. 'He was kept a part of things.'
Nathan's first-grade class called him at least once a week, to let him know they were thinking of him.
It wasn't the leukemia that ended Nathan's life, not directly. Nathan got a viral infection while he was home in the beginning of June. After the chemotherapy, Nathan's immune system was weakened and everything in the house had to be sterilized to ward off infection. To go outdoors Nathan had to wear a mask.
'I don't want people to say he lost his battle with cancer,' said Tammy. 'He fought the disease, and he won. He won for the town that backed him.'
Eric Parry can be reached at 594-6481 or eparry@nashuatelegraph.com.
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