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| Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie De La Garza Abigail Johnston, at right, with her dad, Michael, accepts a check from CEO of The Cubby Cindy Johnson for being named Hero of the Month. |
By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — The Cubby’s March Hero of the Month loves to have fun wearing princess dresses and digging in the mud for worms — sometimes, both things at once.
Four-year-old Abigail Johnston, of Caribou, has a pet frog named Sally, a little brother named Ben … and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Life-flighted out of The Aroostook Medical Center in mid-January for an emergency blood transfusion, Abigail had only a quarter of the amount of blood in her body that she should have had.
“It was really close,” said her mom, Debbie.
Abigail hadn’t been feeling well for a couple of months prior to the discovery of her leukemia, but there was always a reasonable prognosis for the symptoms. The final time they visited the doctor, tests confirmed the 4-year-old’s dire diagnosis and she was transported to the Easter Maine Medical Center within the hour.
“She’s had two of three blood transfusions and platelets quite a few times, but they’ve been able to stabilize her and the active [cancer] cells are in remission at this time,” said Abigail’s dad, Michael, explaining that the chemo will have to continue for the next couple years. “Hopefully, if she doesn’t miss too many appointments due to her blood levels being too low … it’s a little more than two years left of treatments.”
Explaining to a four-year-old what it means to have cancer of the white blood cells would seem to be exceedingly complex, but Michael and Debbie expressed the information simply.
“We explained to her that her blood is sick, and her blood is coughing and sneezing but you can’t see it, and this is why we have to go to the doctor to make your blood feel better,” Debbie described.
“And we’ve never gone into anything negative,” Michael added.
The road toward getting better isn’t an easy one — the family’s been traveling down to Bangor and Brewer for treatments roughly once a week, and the next phase of treatments include about 20 appointments in the next three months, during which the little girl will be hooked up to an IV for sometimes 12 hours a day.
But whether she’s getting surgeries or bloodwork or taking her medicines — Abigail’s consistently been a delight.
“She has never complained once about having to take her medication,” Michael said. “She’ll say ‘let’s take yucky,’ but she’s never asked why she has to take it or said she didn’t want to.”
“She’s gone through quite a bit, but the prognosis is good — she just has a long road ahead of her,” Michael said.
While the Johnstons credit Abigail’s doctors and medical staff for making treatments as smooth as possibly, Michael’s particularly made one thing smooth to help out Abigail — his scalp.
Since Abigail began losing her hair due to chemotherapy, Michael’s been shaving his head nightly with Abigail’s help, of course.
“We asked her if I should grow my hair back and she said ‘no, daddy can’t grow his hair back because I don’t want to be the only one without hair,” Michael said.
“Abigail said that he can grow his hair back when her hair grows back,” said Debbie said with a smile and a hand on Michael’s shiny head.
That road toward recovery seems to be getting a bit sunnier as time goes by; things are much better than they were back in January, when treatments were so intense that the formerly high-energy Abigail couldn’t even walk up the stairs.
“More and more, it’s like ‘Abigail’s back!’” said Debbie, describing how much fun Abigail and her brother had at the Mantle Lake Park just the day before.
One of her favorite places to visit is the Wintergreen Art Center in Presque Isle, and whenever the family treks downstate for treatments, Abigail always wants to stop by the pet stores to hold a snake or a lizard.
While she does have an affinity toward snakes and frogs and mud, she also like arts and crafts and princess dresses.
“She’s just a mix of us,” Debbie said. “[Michael and I] are very opposite, but she’s just a blend — she loves going shopping, she likes going hunting, and there’s really nothing she won’t do or doesn’t enjoy.”
Whether she’s fishing, baking, swimming or looking for bugs and frogs — there’s no denying that this articulate 4-year-old is full of personality.
“Abigail was a delight to meet,” said CEO of The Cubby, Cindy Johnson. “We found her resilience in the face of adversity a remarkable trait found in such a young lady.”
