Dance Marathon: UI senior graduating twice
Graduation bells will ring more than once for Jon DeKock this year.
The 22-year-old cancer survivor will "graduate" from both Dance Marathon and the University of Iowa.
"He's cured," his mother, Lynn DeKock, said with an affectionate smile. "His five years are up. That's why this Dance Marathon is so important, because he'll graduate up on stage."
For the past seven years, Dance Marathon has played a major role in the lives of the DeKock family.
An active soccer player in high school, Jon DeKock first experienced leg pain, fatigue, and abnormal eating habits during his sophomore year.
At first, his family didn't think it was anything serious.
"You're a teenager, so you're tired," was Lynn DeKock's initial thought, she said. "You don't eat. Some of that happens, too. I thought maybe he had anemia."
Concern about Jon DeKock's symptoms led to a trip to the hospital, where, just hours later, the family heard something they never expected.
It was the type of news every mother dreads, Lynn DeKock said. Her son had cancer. And she was in denial.
"The doctor called me at home and said, 'This is something I wouldn't tell you on the phone, but this is something you need to know,' " she said. "I just remember screaming and thinking this can't be right. I drove right downtown to [my husband's] office."
Jon DeKock had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer that starts in the bone marrow. It attacks white blood cells that normally help the body fight infection, according to the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. The cancer is very rare for people under 40. If people with the cancer do not suffer a relapse for five years, they are considered "cured."
That's what happened with Jon.
His father, Ken DeKock, said the chance Jon was given to survive was a "scary percentage."
Jon DeKock spent the next five months in the hospital, receiving treatment. He went through 96-hour sessions of chemotherapy at a time in addition to blood transfusions. Though he was "lucky," he did not have to receive a bone-marrow transplant.
The treatments did, however, alter his body.
"They gave me steroids, and they made me look fat," Jon DeKock said. "I'd be puffy-faced. I'd eat a lot, then I'd stop eating. I'd look sickly skinny and then obese. I was very out of shape and lost my hair."
But he didn't have to spend the five months in the hospital alone.
"I don't know how much Dance Marathon provided, but his room was enormous, and so we were able to move in, and we just lived there," his father said. "It was a very big deal he didn't have to spend five months by himself."
Initially, Ken DeKock said, the family didn't realize how involved Dance Marathon was with patients until they saw the attention the organization gave Jon DeKock.
Dance Marathon quickly became dear to them.
"We were totally in their hands," Ken DeKock said. "We had no idea what to do, and the doctors and nurses took over. I'm just incredibly impressed with Dance Marathon; I'm blown away. Thousand of students involved. How much money they raise. It's just overwhelming."
Dance Marathon paid for many of the family's expenses, Lynn DeKock said, but what mattered most was the people's attention to her son.
"They gave me back massages when I didn't feel well," Jon DeKock said. "All the people there are really nice. It was a humbling experience."
He said his battle with cancer changed his outlook on life.
"I understood that life was short and all that stuff, but it made me a little more open to meeting people," he said. "When you're a kid, you grow up thinking you're normal, and [the cancer] brought you down. But for the most part, I felt really confident. I think my parents were probably more scared than I was."
"I thought we hid it pretty well," his mother said from across the table, with a hint of sarcasm.
But he shook his head.
"Uh, no, you didn't," he said with an impish smile.
His father said while he and his wife were worried, Jon remained strong. And looking beyond the frightening moments, the family agreed it helped bring them together.
"We still did a lot of laughing," Lynn DeKock said. "We'd watch 'Whose Line is it, Anyway.' We'd goof around a lot."
Today, Jon DeKock no longer has the obvious signs of having been a cancer patient. The puffy cheeks have since subsided, and he now sports dark, shaggy hair.
"I work out, I chill, I play video games, and I go to the bars," DeKock said.
He participated in Dance Marathon throughout his time in college, making sure to give back to the organization that helped him.
"Something I really like about Dance Marathon is that all the stories are different, the paths of getting to the event are different, but everyone has the same story about Dance Marathon — about how important the people are and how good they are. Obviously, they're a really great organization. I love them."
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