Care Team Helps Family Navigate Leukemia Together

How a healthcare team went above and beyond to make their patient comfortable

In July 2020, 3-year-old Auggie had low energy and intermittent fevers and headaches. His dad, Sterling, also noticed that his skin was a different shade of pale his parents had never seen before, and that Auggie had the same bruise on his forehead for two weeks. At first, his mom, Sarah, thought it was allergies, but when Auggie went to his grandma’s house for a weekend visit and struck another fever and began vomiting, she decided it was time to call the pediatrician.

When they arrived at the pediatrician’s office, the doctor felt Auggie’s stomach and noticed that it was bloated. He also saw that his skin was bruised just from the car seat straps. He sent Auggie to the emergency department at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, where they began running tests throughout the evening. Like most 3-year-olds, Auggie wasn’t that fond of needles, but Child Life Specialists made the blood draws near painless and helped distract him from everything going on.

Later that night, doctors diagnosed Auggie with leukemia. The next day, his cancer was labeled as B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia — when the bone marrow produces an abundance of abnormal B-lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that helps the body fight infection. For the next month, Auggie received treatment at Siteman Kids at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, which included several different oral and intravenous chemotherapy drugs, as well as oral steroids. He had a slightly enlarged and inefficient heart, in addition to his spleen and liver also being enlarged from the leukemia. His parents traded off staying at the hospital every two days, so one of them could also always be home with their other two children. After four weeks, Auggie came home to the great relief of everyone. “We made welcome posters, and his little sister celebrated by following him around for a week screaming his name and hugging him,” said his mom, Sarah.

In late August 2020, the family learned that Auggie was in remission. He continued to visit the hospital weekly for a few more months and now visits St. Louis Children’s monthly for checkups. In fall 2021, Auggie began playing soccer and later that year also started playing hockey. In October 2022, Auggie’s chemo port was removed. Now 6 years old, Auggie can’t wait to go swimming in the lake this summer — one of the restrictions he faced due to his treatment.

Sarah and Sterling credit the nurses and Child Life Specialists at St. Louis Children’s for Auggie not being afraid of needles or the hospital. “He’s fearless,” said Sterling. “The staff went above and beyond — making sure he could take his medications without being forced and that he truly understood what was going on. They were always willing to accommodate us and whatever Auggie needed.”

Today, Auggie is getting ready for first grade and enjoys riding bikes, crafting and playing chess. He’s even played in local chess tournaments. His parents feel lucky to have such a wonderful team at St. Louis Children’s to help walk them through this process.

Thanks to our donors, the Child Life Services department is able to help more patients like Auggie during their visit. From bringing a patient’s favorite toy or game to their room to a visit from our facility dog, Casey, our Child Life team goes above and beyond to help make every patient and family as comfortable as possible — whether they’re inside our hospital walls or at one of our St. Louis Children’s Specialty Care Centers.

Ronald Dellbringge describes himself as a typical kid growing up in South St. Louis County in the 1940s. Like other boys his age, he started collecting baseball cards around age 9. In those days, a nickel would buy a package of bubble gum that included five baseball trading cards. All the neighborhood kids had their own collections and spent time swapping cards and playing games to win more cards from their friends.

Ronald remembers keeping cards from teams like the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns and players like Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio away from his friends because those were considered prime collector’s items. He also recalls spending quite a bit of time every evening going over his collection — which grew to more than 1,000 cards — reading the backs repeatedly to memorize the player details.

But as he got older, the cards went into shoe boxes, where they sat for decades. About 10 years ago, Ronald was interested to find out if his card collection was of any value but couldn’t find anyone to buy them. Sports trading cards were no longer something the average person cared about.

That all changed when COVID-19 hit and the hobby underwent a historic revival. The pandemic created an abundance of spare time, and several social media influencers turned their followers on to sports memorabilia.

One day, in 2022, Ronald was watching the news when he saw a segment that caught his attention. A 1949 Jackie Robinson baseball card had recently sold for thousands of dollars figures at auction. While the large sum of money might have been appealing to most, there was another reason Ronald was so enthralled with this particular story.

He had the same Jackie Robinson baseball card in his own collection.

Now, his card wasn’t in the same mint condition as the one recently sold at auction, but it certainly got him thinking about the value of his own card collection again. He did some research and found an auction house willing to sell his entire collection. Months later, a large catalog arrived at his house that included his cards. The auction would last two weeks. Ronald and his wife, Sue, developed a system and followed the bids twice a day, once at lunchtime and again each evening. Each time they would check, the dollar amounts would increase. “I’ve never seen my wife get so excited,” said Ronald. “We couldn’t believe some of the prices these cards were going for.”

Ronald knew that he wanted to direct the money to a cause, and he figured that since he collected the cards when he was a kid, that money should go back to kids.

He frequently drove by the St. Louis Children’s Specialty Care Center – West County and decided to stop in one day to check it out. After taking a tour of the facility, he was so impressed that knew he wanted to donate his proceeds to St. Louis Children’s. His generous donation will help support the treatments and programs at The Specialty Care Center, an outpatient facility that features a range of pediatric medical services, both walk-in and appointment-based visits, while surrounding families in an uplifting and creative environment that reduces stress, promotes healing and provides a superior patient experience.

There are many ways to support St. Louis Children’s Hospital Foundation with your time, talent or treasure. To learn more, please visit StLouisChildrens.org/GetInvolved.