By Keith Purtell
Phoenix Staff Writer
November 22, 2008 11:20 pm
—
Charles Moham Jr. complained of his leg hurting.
The 7-year-old’s mother, Jenny Kitchens, said everyone told her it was just growing pains.
“Then one night he stayed awake all night crying,” said Kitchens, 31.
Now Junior, as his family calls him, is being treated for an aggressive disease called Ewing Sarcoma Bone Cancer.
“He’s very shy, and before all this began he was very athletic,” she said. “He enjoyed wrestling and football.”
He’s also a good student. Kitchens said Junior has just completed first grade with straight As on his report card.
A single parent, Kitchens was working two jobs in home health care to support Junior and three other children. She has two daughters: Sky, 12; and Stormy; 14. She is also raising a foster child named Ashley Breshears, 17.
“In May, my mom took him to the Children’s Clinic in Muskogee and they found the cancer in an X-ray,” she said.
That turned a page in the family’s life when medical treatment began and Kitchens had to quit work to take care of her little boy. They survive on Junior’s disability payments of $550 a month and child support payments of $500 a month.
First came the surgery. Even though it went fine, doctors have told Kitchens that Junior has a 20 percent chance of survival.
“The took out the tumor and part of his left femur and replaced it with expandable titanium rods,” she said. “Now we drive back and forth to Oklahoma City for chemotherapy.”
The drive is grueling. Kitchens takes him to Oklahoma City for a doctor’s office visit on Tuesday, then back again on Wednesday for a five-day chemotherapy treatment. That alternates the next week with an office visit and a one-day chemotherapy treatment.
At one time during the chemotherapy, Junior broke the same leg from which the tumor was removed, and he was unable to walk for months.
Kitchens said all this has taken an emotional toll on her son.
“I heard him ask my mom ‘Why do I have to have cancer? Why can’t I play with my friends?’”
Junior also gets radiation treatment because doctors found that the cancer had spread to a nodule on his left lung.
Kitchens said her source of emotional support has been her mother, Mary Ann Kitchens, and her three daughters.
Kitchens herself is being tested for possible ovarian cancer. She said she normally does not like to ask for help, but the financial burden of cancer treatments and constantly driving to Oklahoma City and Tulsa has hit the family hard.
“My mom and I don’t even leave him in the hospital room by himself,” she said. “I won’t leave him.”
You can help
• “Contributions Account for Charles Moham Jr.,” Bank of Oklahoma, 219 S. Main, Eufaula, OK 74432. Phone 689-5761.
• “Contributions Account for Charles Moham Jr.,” Peoples National Bank Of Checotah, 300 W. Gentry Ave., Checotah, OK 74426-2410. Phone: 473-2237.
• Jenny Kitchens, Rt. 2 Box 2189-1, Checotah, OK 74426. Cell: 843-0171. Home: 689-7166.
Reach Keith Purtell at 918-684-2925 or Click Here to Send Email
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Photos
Moham