Levi Akridge
03.15.25 SKC vs Minnesota United FC Gameday Honoree
After Levi was struggling with swollen lymph nodes and a stuffy nose through February 2022, his parents brought him into his primary care physician's office. Chest x-rays and labs were done and came back clear, and they were told that he must be on the tail end of some virus and wait it out. Then, in March, his family traveled to Las Vegas for a family trip, and it was then Levi's parents noticed while he was sleeping that while he was sleeping, he would stop breathing in his sleep.
The family immediately called the doctor, and they were advised that potentially the infection was holding out in his tonsils and an appointment for an ENT was set up for the day they returned from their trip. It was at the ENT appointment that the doctor saw something no one else had. The family was sent directly over to the hospital with an order for a chest X-ray and labs. It was within the hour, we got the call to drive directly to Children's Hospital in Omaha, NE, that a 5.5-inch mass was showing on the X-ray that when Levi would lie down, the mass was compressing his airway.
Time stood still for weeks and months for the family when they got the news that the mass was indeed cancer, and there were multiple other "clusters" of cancerous lymphatic tissue throughout his abdomen. On 3/19/22, Levi was officially diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic Lymphoma, and a 2.5-year treatment plan to follow. But then, finally, on 7/4/24, Levi received his final chemo treatment and is currently getting back to living life like a typical 12-year-old boy, and his cancer is in Remission.
