By Nina Golgowski New York Daily News
Colin Flood
It’s heartbreak not even New York’s bravest want to face.
Just 14 months after the 8-year-old son of a retired firefighter went into remission for his leukemia his family has learned that his cancer has returned.
“They didn’t see it coming he looked so good,” Colin Flood’s father, Kevin Flood — a former Fort Greene firefighter and 9/11 responder — said Monday of doctors’ devastating November 10 discovery.
“We just went in for procedures stuff. He felt some pain in his back, nothing too crazy. We just thought it was something they should check out,” said Colin’s father.
But according to Flood, the doctors “were as shocked as anybody” by the diagnosis, “because he was doing so well.”
Colin, who received a bone marrow transplant in July after diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in 2011, is now waiting to see what happens next.
“We still need to get him back into remission again,” his father said of their current plans, confessing that it will be “10 times harder to get him into remission” for the second time.
Colin is just one of three that the city’s fire department has its eyes on.
Owen Hogan, the 2-year-old son of Brooklyn firefighter Tim Hogan, is also in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant as well as 24-year firefighter veteran and 9/11 responder Jimmy Martinez.
“As of now, we know there is no available match for Owen,” his father told Delete Blood Cancer, the organization helping spearhead donor searches with Tunnel to Towers. “We remain hopeful that in spreading the word, the registry will continue to grow, and a match for Owen will be found.”
On Saturday a bone marrow donor drive is being held by the two organizations in Staten Island.
The drive would not only potentially benefit Owen and Martinez but those in dire need of bone marrow transplants around the world.
