The scar on Nick Kaufman’s chest makes it impossible for him to forget a painful time in his young life. It’s where an external IV port connected him to the chemotherapy treatment used to fight the acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) he was diagnosed with nearly a year and a half ago, at just age 13.
After enduring a battle that thoroughly wiped him out for more than five months, it would be easy for the scar to haunt the ninth-grader at Maple Grove Junior High. Yet, Kaufman chooses to look back and smile. “It taught me how much people actually care about me,” he says. “Your attitude is everything. You can do things you don’t even think you can do as long as you have the right attitude.”
Diagnosis
About a month prior to his diagnosis, Kaufman didn’t feel “right.” He was fatigued, he had headaches and bloody noses, and his knees began to ache. “I didn’t really have any clue what it was,” he recalls. “I just felt sick.”
When his health took a turn for the worse in the last week of March 2008 after a trip to Mexico, he went to get tested for a parasite. It came back negative. A week later he went to a pediatrician at Maple Grove Allina to get his blood tested. When the results came back, Kaufman and his family were told to come in to discuss them. “I knew right then it wasn’t going to be good,” Nick’s mother, Sue, recalls.
They were informed that Nick had AML. After asking several questions, Nick was directed to get treated immediately at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, where he was told he’d have to receive chemotherapy and should plan to stay in the hospital for about six to seven months. He started his treatment two days after his diagnosis, a rapid response that’s common with AML patients.
AML is a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow that about one in five children with leukemia has, according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. With this type of cancer, bone marrow makes unformed cells called blasts, which usually develop into white blood cells, red blood cells or platelets. However, AML cells are abnormal, are unable to fight infections like regular white blood cells and can grow quickly to crowd out the normal blood cells a body needs. More than 11,900 new cases of AML occur in the United States each year, mostly in adults, with the average age of diagnosis being 65. Kaufman was a rare case, falling under the 10 percent category of AML patients who are children. Still, one question that never came out of Kaufman’s mouth was “why me?”
That’s what taught Sue how strong her son was. “His motto throughout the treatment was ‘mind over matter,’” she says. “He was going to fight it. He wasn’t going to let it all bring him down. He was determined.”
Fighting Back
Kaufman knew his life was going to change dramatically. But he also knew that his reaction to that change was up to him.
Five rounds of chemotherapy took his hair and left him feeling weak and sick. “It’s not good to feel that bad,” Kaufman says. “The worst part was when you really don’t feel good after the treatment and you can’t do anything for a few days. That was just horrible, but then it gets better. You start feeling better when you’re in the hospital and you have visitors.”
Kaufman had plenty of them. Family members, friends and coaches came to be by his side, flooding him with gifts and encouragement. As the word spread about Nick’s condition, the Kaufman family received support from people they didn’t even know from the local community. People who he never met wrote on his Caring Bridge website, and he even received a series of gifts from an anonymous source, who the Kaufman family labeled the “mystery giver.” “I just knew that people were praying for me and wanted me to get better,” Nick says. “It meant a lot that not just me and my family, but other people, cared.”
Kaufman used that support as inspiration to remain positive, no matter how bad he felt. His optimistic and humorous attitude rubbed off on those around him, including his nurse Carrie Thom, who cared for him through most of his stay. “Nick was what you would call ‘entertaining,’” Thom says. “After all the days of not feeling up to par and us waking him up in the middle of the night, Nick always kept a good attitude and always had a trick up his sleeve.”
Thom remembers Kaufman, who sometimes terrorized the nursing staff with a remote control helicopter, asking her if she thought 14-year-old boys appreciated the fact that a majority of nurses wear floral or feminine scrub tops. The next day she put special consideration into her work attire, wearing scrubs decorated in super heroes. “I asked him if that was better for a 14-year-old boy and he stated, ‘Oh yeah. Guys in tights. Much better.’” She recalls. “He always knew how to make us laugh. He’s the type of kid who made you realize why you love your job.”
Road to Recovery
Kaufman was released from the hospital on Sept. 17, 2008, cancer free. As soon as his platelet count built up enough to allow him to partake in any sort of physical activity, Kaufman started biking and rollerblading with his friends to his favorite restaurant: Chipotle. His appetite was back, he started gaining back weight, and best of all, he was able to get outside with his friends. “I think I went to Chipotle about a week or more straight every single day,” Kaufman says.
In early October, Kaufman, who had to take a break from hockey, soccer and golf due to his condition, made a surprise appearance at Bantam hockey tryouts. His father, Alan, was running the tryouts and asked if Nick wanted to come skate around a little. Nick took it a step further and got involved in a couple of drills. After he completed his first drill, every player started tapping their sticks on the ice in salute. “I was like, ‘this is great,’” recalls Nick, who joined his team at the start of the season. “It put the biggest smile on my face.”
Little did Nick know, his biggest smile on the ice was yet to come. This past March, the Make-A-Wish Foundation granted Nick a trip to Detroit to meet the Detroit Red Wings, his favorite team. Accompanied by his parents, older brother Andrew and younger sister Lauren to Joe Louis Arena, Nick was able to meet and skate with his favorite player, Nicklas Lidstrom. Kaufman even participated in a shootout against Red Wings goalie Ty Conklin. “I was just having a blast with those guys; they were so nice,” Nick says. “That was just unbelievable. It took me a few days to let it sink in. Now, it’s just like, ‘I can’t believe that happened.’”
To the surprise of nobody, Nick, who has remained in remission since his release, chooses to look back on his trying time the same as when he was sick in his hospital bed: thinking positively and cherishing the people who helped him. “People didn’t forget who I was,” Nick says. “People were finding out more of who I was.”
