Bonita/Estero Profile: Ben Klassen

It began with Sandie Klassen noticing her 3-year-old son appeared to be growing paler by the day. When she hugged him, bruises from her fingers appeared on his back. She took him to his pediatrician, who told Sandie and her husband to take their son, Ben, directly to Dr. Emad Salman at The Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida.

By 5 p.m. that day, Sandie learned Ben had neuroblastoma, a form of cancer found in the developing nerves of infants and children.

"Our experience at The Children's Hospital was filled with total and wholehearted compassion," Sandie says. "The team understood the weight of the news they were giving us and didn't take it lightly. Dr. Salman and Debbie, the nurse, came in as a team to deliver the news. They had one of their counselors, Laurel, there right after to talk to us, too. Dr. Salman made sure we were OK to drive home to pack up a few things, and he called me two more times while we were home to make sure we were OK, even though he knew we'd be back in an hour."

Tests and a bone marrow biopsy to determine the type of chemotherapy Ben needed began immediately and continued for the next 21 days. Throughout the months and seemingly unending visits to The Children's Hospital, Sandie recalls, there was total concern not just for Ben, but for the Klassens as a family.

Eight months into Ben's treatment, the family traveled to Duke University for a bone marrow transplant and subsequent five-month stay in North Carolina. The transplant was a success and after a few years of follow up with Dr. Salman, Ben was declared cured in 2007.

Today, at age 12, Ben is a "total athlete," playing hockey and other sports and, last fall he was named a superior pianist at a state-sponsored student music festival.

"The Children's Hospital is more important than anyone could ever realize," Sandie says. "You don't realize what is at your fingertips until you need it. There's no way my husband and I could have kept jobs and traveled with Ben's diagnosis. I just don't think we could have made it."