Mt. Laurel Telegram

By TONY MARQUIS | The Mt. Laurel Telegram

Joe Atkins walked up to the back door of the car, greeting his son, Joey. He opened the door, helped his son get to his feet, then put his hand behind Joey’s head and pressed his forehead to Joey’s, holding him there.

It was a big day for Joey.

For the past month, all Joey wanted to do was attend his eighth-grade graduation. To see friends and classmates he hadn’t seen since March. To get out of the hospital for just one day and back into Harrington Middle School.

Thirty minutes before the ceremony outside of the school, Joey’s mother, Jennifer, opened the trunk and pulled out Joey’s wheelchair. Joey sat down and lifted his legs into the chair’s stirrups. He strained to lift his right leg and the thick cast that covered it from the knee down.

With Joey in his wheelchair, Joe reached into his pocket and pulled out a large gold ring. The ring was his father’s, given to him on his eighth-grade graduation. It was time for Joey to have it. Joey took it, twirled it in his hand and stared closely at it. In the ring’s setting was an onyx-like stone with a gold star and a capital “A” on it.

His family took time to hug and kiss him before he had to be rushed into school to prepare for the ceremony.

Inside, they wheeled Joey, in his gold graduation robe, to the corner of the stage to wait while the rest of the students lined up in another room. They sat him in front of a TV, where a DVD that one of the students put together was playing. It was a montage of music and pictures from the year. A field trip to a water park, a dance. All the things he missed.

He was disappointed, but he didn’t cry. He looked down at his new ring, moved it to another finger, then continued watching the DVD.

Then came the first pictures of Joey, sitting at a table with his classmates, at a Philadelphia Phillies game.

Like graduation day, Joey did everything he could to go to the game. He put off treatment and physical therapy. He took a break from the fight.

The diagnosis

A quiet kid, Joey always loved school. History is still his favorite subject. While his father grew up playing sports in school, Joey was a bookworm. He loved fact books and almanacs.

In February – the morning after one of the worst winter storms in the region – Joey was walking to school when he fell on some ice and broke his hip. Doctors fixed his hip, but a month later, Joey’s mother took him to the hospital because of painful swelling in his right knee.

After a few tests, doctors had a diagnosis: osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer that had to be treated immediately before it spread throughout the body.

Doctors haven’t told Jennifer what stage Joey’s cancer is in, but they’ve run test after test, and all confirm the same: Joey is going to need major surgery to remove the cancer.

The surgery

Joey looks at his mother, then looks down at his right leg, imagining what it would look like if it wasn’t there.

Jennifer is explaining a surgery Joey will need soon to rid his body of the cancer that’s attacking him. If doctors are successful, only Joey’s knee and part of the shinbone will need to be removed, and a bar will enable limited use of his leg.

But there’s a possibility Joey will lose his entire leg from above the knee and down.

“A prosthetic leg is – a fake leg?” Joey says to his mother.

“You’d have to imagine this, not even being there, from there,” says Jennifer as she points to his knee. “You would have a leg that attached – you’d just have to learn how to walk again. But we can do that.

“You’ve made it through all this.”

Joey’s says he’s a “little bit” nervous about his upcoming operation.

“If I do surgery, I might be able to ride bikes and stuff,” Joey says. “He said it might be savable — whatever that means. I can’t worry about that.”

A machine starts to beep and a nurse walks in to replace an empty IV bag. It’s Saturday, and because Joey came in on Thursday for his chemotherapy — to go to his graduation — he likely won’t leave this room, on the third floor of the south tower of the hospital, for two more days. Even if he does, he’ll be back for another round of chemo on Wednesday.

Joey’s used to the schedule now. Conversations about medicines and surgeries are normal. At any one time during the week, Joey could have as many as seven machines hooked up to him, intravenously delivering chemicals into his system designed to kill the cancer cells in his leg.

Machines beep constantly when fluids need to be changed. Nurses check on Joey every day at 4 a.m. He has physical therapy twice a day.

Joey’s surgery is scheduled for July 7, and doctors are running more and more tests to make sure his body is prepared for the operation.

The nurses say Joey doesn’t cry like the younger kids, when it’s time for tests. He doesn’t complain, until the the drugs and the pain get to be too much. Like when they run large arterial tubes into his arms to deliver medicine.

One of the drugs, cisplatin, makes it hard for Joey to eat anything. The first time he took the drug, he went into the intensive care unit the next day.

But some tests give him and his family relief. He just had a CT scan that showed the cancer hadn’t spread to other parts of his body.

“Sometimes it’s scary,” Joey has said about the treatment. “I have good days and bad days.”

‘They’re going to be OK’

Joey’s best days have been when he hears about school. Students, teachers and the community have rallied around Joey. They’ve held fund raisers through car washes and bake sales. Some seventh-graders shaved their heads for him.

“When he hears this, then his spirits are lifted,” Jennifer said. “He’s happy, it makes him smile. He loves that his friends are doing this — it’s just, he wants to be there.”

It’s why he didn’t want to miss graduation.

At graduation, Joey was surprised by his friends and teachers when he was awarded the school’s annual Unsung Hero award. They brought him out and gave him a standing ovation.

But Joey doesn’t see himself as a hero; just another 14-year-old boy.

To pass the time at the hospital, Joey plays a lot of video games. His favorite is a World War II flight simulator called Heroes of the Pacific, where he can play as a pilot named Crowe, who’s called upon to perform several bombing and battle missions. It’s a little violent and there’s some light cursing. Joey’s into all things World War II lately. He hardly saves his progress, preferring to redo missions until he beats them over and over again. When he’s done with his games, he does puzzles and reads books.

Just another 14-year-old boy.

And when he’s feeling better, his mom will help him into his wheelchair and he’ll go down the halls to greet the nurses or go to the Ronald McDonald House play area, to watch movies and play board games. They also have a Nintendo Wii and a Playstation 3 there.

But sometimes he’ll just go down the hall, to talk with younger kids who are also fighting cancer. Kids who are doing rounds of chemotherapy and have their own important surgeries ahead. He waves at them and gives them high-fives.

“He wants them to know that they’re going to be OK, too,” Jennifer said.

The Telegram will continue to follow Joey’s story. Share your comments with us and the Atkins family on our Web site below or via e-mail to news@mtlaureltelegram.com.

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