Blood drive for boy with local ties begins this Tuesday

A young boy with ties to Bonners Ferry is the center of a blood drive taking place the next two weekends in town to assist in his fight with cancer.

Two-year-old Landon Hill, whose mother Madison grew up in Bonners Ferry is battling stage four metastatic neuroblastoma.

The first blood drive is scheduled for Tuesday, July 19 from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the LDS church, 6568 Alderson Ln.

The following week, the blood drive will take place at Safeway on Saturday, July 23 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

A longer article will be in the Herald next week, detailing Landon’s progress. Here is a post from Madison Hill from Landon’s GoFundMe page describing his struggle.

“To give a brief summary, a few weeks ago Landon had been complaining about back pain.

We took him to his doctor and after an X-ray we believed that he was dealing with constipation.

We were able to get him all cleaned out but he still continued to complain of the pain periodically.

He still continues to act like a normal toddler but slowly we and his daycare noticed some changes. He just didn’t seem as much like himself and wasn’t eating as well. We went back to his doctor and ran some lab work that all came back normal. We weren’t sure what to do next.

On Monday March 7th we received a phone call from his daycare that he didn’t feel well, didn’t want to be touched, and was just crying.

We rushed him back to his doctor who referred us to Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital. We were admitted through the ER that night and spent the next four days going through blood tests, CT scans, MRIs, bone scans, needle aspirates, and ultrasounds until on Friday March 11th the doctor told us that there was a mass they found around his spine and it was cancerous... We have never felt such sickening devastation in our lives.

The diagnosis was confirmed March 15 and that it had spread to his bone marrow. Our beautiful, happy son has stage four metastatic neuroblastoma.

Our world has been turned upside down as we now face this battle but we are a strong family with amazing physical and spiritual support. We will BEAT this! If you can find it in your heart to make a donation to them. If you are not able to make a donation please share this page and say a prayer for him and our family.

Thank you so much!!! We will beat this!!!”