Community rallies to help second-grader

By LINDSAY VANHULLE
lvanhulle@record-eagle.com

June 01, 2008 04:00 am

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TRAVERSE CITY -- The signs were easy to miss.

When Thomas Swartzmiller began to complain of pain in his joints, his parents saw how quickly he had grown and assumed his discomfort was from growing pains.

And as the weather cooled last fall, his father said, Thomas' skin began to itch, but they thought it was irritated by the drier air.

They had no idea what the symptoms really meant, until early April, when Kurt and Susan Swartzmiller discovered a lump on their son's neck.

It was then they learned that Thomas, a second-grader at Norris Elementary, had Stage IV Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the lymph nodes.

"He's got very high morale," said Kurt Swartzmiller, of Traverse City. "He's not a boy to complain."

The family travels about twice a week to Grand Rapids, where Thomas, 8, receives chemotherapy treatments, Swartzmiller said.

He has completed two full sessions, and Swartzmiller said a recent scan showed the treatment has shrunk some of the cancerous spots.

But chemotherapy likely won't end until fall, he said, and the back-and-forth travel expenses are beginning to add up.

Now, family members in the region are asking the community for help.

Cindi and David Mohrhardt, Thomas' paternal aunt and uncle, will host a Bowl-A-Thon benefit for the boy and his family this weekend at Timber Lanes bowling alley in Garfield Township.

The Mohrhardts, who own the lanes, will donate all proceeds to cover the family's extra expenses. Besides medical bills, the family incurs travel costs to Grand Rapids, lodging in the city and additional health insurance charges.

"Everything that we collect, everything, goes directly to the family," Cindi Mohrhardt said.

A fund also has been set up with Fifth Third Bank, she said, and more than $2,000 has been raised thus far.

Thomas is doing well, all things considered, his father said. He was well enough last week to throw out the first pitch at a Traverse City Beach Bums baseball game.

He also was supposed to throw the first pitch for the Detroit Tigers on Mother's Day, but the game was rained out. Swartzmiller said it could be rescheduled.

"He just loves baseball," Swartzmiller said. "He stood up and shook his head and gritted his teeth and walked out there like nothing was wrong."

Hodgkin's has become a fairly treatable form of cancer, and Swartzmiller said doctors told the family the success rate is as high as 90 percent.

"He will get better," Swartzmiller said. "That's the only way we can think about it.

"The only choice we have is not to do it, and that's not a choice at all."

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