By Bryant Somerville, WBNS 10TV
There are times we feel complete. Other times, most of us know the feeling of a missing piece.
For Heather Vincent, that piece is normalcy.
“We don’t have normal,” she said. “We don’t know what normal is.”
When her son Jackson was 2-1/2, he was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma. He went through all of his treatments and eventually was cancer-free for about two-and-a-half years until it came back.
“And then we found out in January he relapsed,” she said.
Jackson is now 6. Lately, the Ronald McDonald House has been a second home.
“We were here 51 days,” Vincent said. “We got to go home last week and now we’re back.”
Back to the hospital. Back to the treatments. Back to the lack of normalcy.
But there is a piece of normalcy, as small as it might seem, that Jackson carries with him.
Jackson loves Lego. In the past year, Vincent says he’s built upwards of 40 sets at his house. At the hospital, while doing treatments, he builds.
“Yesterday, we sat and built Legos all through chemo, so we were there for three hours and I don’t think he thought about chemo once,” she said. “He just focused on the Legos and didn’t realize he sat in the bed for three hours. He just was building Legos.”
The LEGOLAND Discovery Center, knowing many children can’t make it to Easton, decided to take the fun to the Ronald McDonald House Thursday.
“Yeah, they bumped up his chemo this morning so he could come back and make it here so he could do Legos,” Vincent said.
It’s a much-deserved distraction.
Maxx Davidson is the master model builder for LEGOLAND Discovery Center Columbus.
“You get to bring some smiles to kids’ faces who might not get to have an opportunity for an event like this all the time,” he said.
An opportunity to be normal.
“It almost takes you back to normal for a little bit,” Vincent said. “Takes you out of the cancer world for a while.”