Eleven-Year-Old MPN Hero Remains Positive in the Face of Uncertainty

Cannon McMullin was diagnosed with essential thrombocythemia (ET) at 8 years old, and now at age 11, has been living with the disease for 3 years. Cannon is the youngest of his siblings but has shown the poise of someone much older than him as he regularly travels for treatments and checkups with his parents, making him an MPN Hero and example for all patients to look too.

While Cannon has had his struggles with the disease the current treatment, he is on has allowed him to live a mostly normal life and continue to pursue the activities he loves, like basketball. Cannon is also a part of a clinical study investigating a new treatment, and Cannon knows that his participation in this trial is vital to the ongoing study of patients with ET, but more importantly, he’s doing it to help patients like him.

In an interview with CURE, Cannon discussed how he remains positive and some of the things he thinks about while undergoing treatment and traveling for meetings with physicians.

TRANSCRIPTION

I just try to think of things that make me happy and just try not to think of the disease that I have. Like, I like sports games or like Call of Duty and fortnight, games like those.

In the summer we live really close to a lake, and so we'll put our kayaks down a little bit down the road then we'll kayak down to the beach and then drive back to our house.