On Tuesday, Feb. 20, he was diagnosed with cancer- acute lymphocytic leukemia, more commonly known as ALL. A type of cancer of blood and bone marrow, ALL is the most common type of cancer in children, and treatments result in a good chance for a cure, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Krystal and Carter Swinnea with their son Hudson at the Groesbeck High School Football Stadium in the fall of 2023.
Krystal Swinnea and her children, 10-year-old Laramie and 5-year-old Hudson, pose for Christmas photos in 2023.
Spiderman paid a special visit to Hudson Swinnea at the hospital on February 24, bringing gifts for the 6-year-old and playing with him, showing off his cool tricks!
Community Rallies to Support Swinnea Family After Six-Year-Old’s Cancer Diagnosis
In the past several months, Hudson Swinnea has been experiencing growing pains. An active boy who loves Spiderman and showing animals, he celebrated his sixth birthday in January and just a few weeks later, his leg pain was so severe that he didn’t feel up to walking around the fairgrounds where he was showing a pig. To his mother, Krystal Swinnea, this seemed to be more significant and outside the bounds of the Sever’s Disease he was diagnosed with in November 2023 - a common cause of heel pain in young people who are experiencing a period of growth.
After a ruptured ear drum in early February, and testing positive for COVID shortly after, Krystal agreed to a blood test for Hudson on Friday, Feb. 16, hoping for some peace of mind.
On Tuesday, Feb. 20, he was diagnosed with cancer- acute lymphocytic leukemia, more commonly known as ALL. A type of cancer of blood and bone marrow, ALL is the most common type of cancer in children, and treatments result in a good chance for a cure, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Even still, a cancer diagnosis is never easy to accept, and Hudson’s mom, family, friends, and community reacted the only way they knew how- by showing up with an abundance of love and prayer.
Krystal, a counselor at Groesbeck High School, posted on Facebook about the diagnosis and has shared daily updates about Hudson ever since, posting about procedures like testing his bone marrow and spinal fluid and putting in his port for chemotherapy. She asked for prayers and got them, receiving more support in their time of need than she ever could have hoped for.
“At some points, I had more than a hundred messages from people,” Swinnea said, “so posting updates on Facebook seemed like the best way to share information with people wanting to know what’s going on.”
Hudson’s village wasted no time in finding ways to help the Swinnea family, creating “Heroes for Hudson” shirts, stickers, bracelets, and more to sell within days of the diagnosis, with proceeds going directly to the family to help with hospital costs. A GoFundMe fundraiser was started the same day as Hudson’s diagnosis and has raised nearly $7,000 at the time of press.
Bake sales and spaghetti dinners (one of Hudson’s favorite foods) have been hugely successful and so appreciated by the Swinneas. The spaghetti dinner hosted by Mutual Assistance Group (MAG) in downtown Groesbeck on Saturday, March 2 raised over $2,350 for the family!
Treatment for ALL usually lasts about 2.5 years, with weekly chemotherapy sessions for at least the first year, depending on Red Blood Cell (RBC) and White Blood Cell (WBC) counts. According to Krystal and Hudson’s doctors, the first month is usually the hardest as his body has to get used to the chemotherapy drugs.
It has only been a little over two weeks since Hudson’s diagnosis, and the Swinnea family has not yet settled into a “new normal”. Hudson’s 10-year-old sister Laramie has been staying with their grandparents since his diagnosis and is currently sick, so she can’t even visit Hudson when he is home from the hospital because his compromised immune system must be guarded against any kind of illness. For Krystal, the temporarily altered family dynamic has been extra challenging, and she hates that they cannot all be together.
Hudson has good days, where he wants to play and be active, and hard days, where his body is in pain and he doesn’t have the energy to get out of bed. A lot of the past two weeks have been spent more at hospitals than at home, and Krystal is looking forward to getting into some kind of routine as they navigate treatment going forward.
“So many people ask me what we need or what they can do, and right now I just don’t know,” Krystal said. “Prayers are always appreciated, and I have a couple of Amazon wishlists where I add things that will make Hudson’s time at the hospital more enjoyable or things that doctors or parents who have gone through this recommend. It’s all still so new.”
Despite the challenges ahead, Krystal remains positive and focuses on good news as much as possible. That being said, she doesn’t shy away from keeping it real and talking about the hard days, too. Though some parents of ALL-diagnosed children make separate pages or groups on Facebook where they post updates, Krystal plans to continue posting updates on her personal page as she’s done since the diagnosis.
If you would like to help the Swinnea family during this trying time, you can sign up for the meal train, and/or donate to their GoFundMe account, both linked below.
Kamdan’s Cafe in Groesbeck is hosting a Pancake Supper fundraiser on Wednesday, March 7 from 4-8 p.m., where a bakesale will also be held, with all proceeds going to Hudson’s medical expenses.
Meal train- https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/gmwey8