CLEVELAND — As a former Olympic track and field competitor, Jud Logan has always pushed himself to stay active, but suddenly his body started pushing back.
"I woke up Monday morning and I was getting ready to take a shower, and my wife noticed that I had some bruises on my body. And she said, 'where did you get those from?' I said, 'I don't know,'" said Logan.
Logan's daughter is a nurse and urged her dad to go to the doctor right away. So he did.
"About two hours later, I got a call and said, you need to get back here immediately. Your platelets are 18. And I'm like, 'oh, what are they supposed to be?' They said between 150 and 200. I said, OK," said Logan.
Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic diagnosed him with b-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a rare form of the cancer that only affects about 6,000 Americans annually. Logan told his doctor he wouldn't let the diagnosis scare him.
"Right now, I'm back in athlete mode and I want you to be my coach, and I want to be on the best team. People tell me 'you are the best.' And so I am going to be your best player. I am going to give you effort like you've never seen before. I'm going to follow every step that you ask me to follow," said Logan.
After 13 days of treatment, Logan was in remission. He's part of a clinical study with the Cleveland Clinic and will continue chemotherapy through January 2022. Right now with his treatment, he won't need a bone marrow transplant which is a procedure most patients need to completely get rid of the cancer in their body.
For 15-month-old Paisley Palmer, a bone marrow transplant is the in future. Just a few months ago, Paisley's mom and dad heard the words no parents want to hear: your baby has cancer.
"And when she said the words 'myeloid sarcoma,' I knew what that term meant. I remember leaving the computer and just falling to the floor. This can't be happening. That was total denial. This can't be happening. It felt for several days that I was in this nightmare waiting to be woken up from it," said Jessica Palmer, Paisley's mom.
Paisley has finished one round of chemo, is currently going through her second round and may need more. Eventually, she'll need her bone marrow transplant — something her parents are working hard to raise awareness about.
You can text the message "save Paisley" to 61474 and that will allow the process to start for anyone that's interested to get their own kit to be added to the bone marrow registry.
The Palmers ask everyone to keep their baby and other blood cancer patients in mind and sign up to be a match.
"So... I'm going to quote an amazing line that I see on be the matches website that gives me goosebumps every time I read it. And so it's: 'The cure for blood cancer is in the hands of ordinary people. You can be the cure.'"
If you would like information on how you sign up to be a donor, you can click here.