By Sabine Klier
Tom (12) was born twelve weeks premature. He now lies in his maternity hospital, just two doors down from the room where he once struggled to survive in the incubator during the first few months of his life. He has leukemia!
“But he fights like a lion,” says his mother Eileen Albin (38). A stem cell donor is being sought together with the DKMS Society so that Tom can live on.
“He’s already had chemotherapy,” his mother explains. “Then the second started and he was very bad.”
A week and a half ago, Eileen Albin drove her son to the emergency room at the Buch Clinic. There he was immediately put into an artificial coma!
Tom is Asperger’s autistic with an island gift. “He was diagnosed when he was two years old. I noticed because he never wanted to be touched,” says his mother. “He’s only interested in one thing at a time.” It used to be coins, but now he collects Pokémon cards. He saves his pocket money for this. But he doesn’t open all the bags he bought right away, but saves them for the right moment.
Tom attended a special school for autistic people. Up until December, life was carefree. He was never sick. But then he caught a cold. And the cold stayed.
Grandma Kirsten (59) visited her grandson in the hospital Photo: Private/DKMS
In March his fever rose to 41 degrees. A real doctors’ marathon began in the hospital. There were many diagnoses but no cure. “On May 16th we were back in the rescue station. At 10 p.m. we received the diagnosis: leukemia,” says Eileen Albin.
After starting the second chemo, Tom’s values deteriorated dramatically. All interventions were stopped. He has been in a coma since the beginning of June!
The student has leukemia. Here in the clinic after chemotherapy with his mom Photo: Private/DKMS
His mother visits him every day, holds his hand. “I always tell him: Tom, we can do this. I know that he notices me.”
She has pasted his hospital room with photos from happy days. “He’s slowly coming out of his coma. Two days ago he quietly said Mama.” But he’s still unconscious.
Mom is certain: “He will see his 13th birthday in August. And then he survived the darn 13th year of life.” By then at the latest he will be able to open all his Pokémon bags.
Stem cell donors can register online with the German bone marrow donor file at: www.dkms.de/tom