Impact on the Haley Center for Childrens Cancer and Blood Disorders

The Haley Center for Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders at Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children provides high-quality care for children with various forms of cancer and blood disorders. The outpatient and inpatient units are designed with the comfort of patients and their families in mind and provide children with multidisciplinary care including social work, a pharmacy, nutritional services, physical and occupational therapies and child life services.

Meet Nathan

It was August 2, 2012, when the Grants heard the words for the very first time: “I’m afraid your son has cancer.” Nathan was 2 years old and initially diagnosed with standard risk Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. He was admitted to Orlando Health Arnold Palmer that very night.

Nathan completed just over three years of treatment. Most were outpatient, but still required multiple trips a week to Orlando Health Arnold Palmer during frontline treatment, which took about a year. The remaining two years Nathan took nightly oral chemo and received IV chemo once a month, along with a weeklong pulse of steroids. He also had a spinal tap every three months so that chemo could be injected into his spinal fluid.

In August 2016, Nathan—then 6 years old—was in remission for 10 months before he relapsed. Nathan’s family was heartbroken. It was harder to hear the second time around. Nathan now required two additional years of intensive chemotherapy and cranial radiation.

Nathan completed treatment for a second time August 30, 2018. Today, he is in remission. He has monthly blood tests and checkups at Orlando Health Arnold Palmer to monitor his health but is back in school and enjoying time just being a kid.