Everyday there are children with cancer fighting for their lives.
Scotty Cartwright’s seven-year-old son Jordan is one of them. Last March, Jordan fell gravely ill. His parents thought he had anemia and were frantically awaiting the results of his blood work when Jordan’s condition worsened.
“When his nose started bleeding and he was coughing up blood, we would have taken him to emergency, but we didn’t have any finances, we didn’t have any fuel for our vehicle, just enough to get to Grande Prairie,” Cartwright said.
Cartwright, his wife, and two children had moved from Westlock to DeBolt, 60 kilometres east of Grande Prairie, so that he could seek treatment for his drug addiction. The day the family left in July 2015, their rental house in Westlock burned to the ground and the family lost everything they owned.
“Something in that changed in me and I started doing a lot of self-work to get myself into a functioning, respectable member of society,” he said.
Cartwright has been sober ever since, but with precarious finances and a wife seven-months pregnant with their third child, he went to the bottle depot to cash as many bottles for the trek to the Grande Prairie hospital.
At the hospital, doctors and nurses performed immediate blood work on Jordan and put him on a medevac jet to the Stollery Children’s Hospital. Jordan was diagnosed with leukemia.
“Ninety-three thousand out of 100,000 of my son’s cells were leukemic,” Cartwright said. “They had said as much as two more days and he wouldn’t have been here. Our world stopped turning that day. Everything came to an abrupt crashing halt.”
From Day 1 at the Stollery, the Ronald McDonald House and Kids for Cancer Society stepped in to provide the family with accommodations, food vouchers, parking passes and more — for nine months they lived at the Ronald McDonald House.
“You could almost say we didn’t have any hope at all,” he recalled. “It was a very hopeless impossible situation. Because of the love of others before us that have put together these amazing charities — the Ronald McDonald House and the Kids with Cancer Society — we started to see a little hope.”
As chance happens, the Ronald McDonald House became the place where Cartwright’s 10-month-old daughter Hope grew up.
In the summer of 2016, Cartwright decided to pay it forward and show his and his family’s gratitude for the support they have and will continue to receive.
This May 27 at the Rotary Spirit Centre field house, Cartwright is organizing Fight for Hope, an Alberta Amateur Boxing Association minimized sanctioned fight card featuring six bouts.
The headlining event will see Cartwright take on Westlock RCMP Const. Craig Armstrong in the final match — the first-ever professional bout for either.
“I thought, what if I were to get in the ring so that I could represent these children that are in the fight of their life and I would be willing to be in the fight of my life with them.”
But the fight is not over for Jordan. Once his blood count reaches a healthy level, he will undergo chemotherapy treatment daily until 2020.
The goal is to raise $100,000 that night so that both the Ronald McDonald House and the Kids With Cancer Society can walk away with $50,000 each.
“That’s a big challenge and a big task, but I came from Westlock so I know what Westlock’s made of and I know what comes out of this town — nothing but greatness and love,” he said.
Leading up to the event, the local radio station will be accepting toys so that families at both organizations will have Christmas presents for the sick children and their siblings.
“Not only do they help heal the child that’s sick, but they help heal the family as a whole,” he said.
“They have major things put in place to help with the psychological, the medical costs, accommodations, sibling programs, making it so you can at least have a Christmas.”
Cartwright assures Fight For Hope will be a family event, complete with kids’ activities and appearances from Disney princesses and Marvel superheroes.
Jordan will also conduct the R.F. Staples School band and their opening rendition of O Canada.
Beyond the fights, guests will be able to entertain themselves with the silent and live auction, catering, raffle and door prizes — including a child-size quad — followed by a performance by country-music cover band TJ Ruckus Band to close out the night.
Tickets are available on EventBrite and at the Flower Shoppe. VIP tables and tickets can be purchased through Cartwright, or the Ronald McDonald House and Kids With Cancer Society. VIP seating is $125 a ticket or $800 for a table of eight.
General admission is $60 or two for $100. Kids five and under are free, while kids 5-12 are $25.
