Jake's Final Wish

On Friday morning, 7-year-old Jake McConahay cannon balled into the pool at .

With green goggles stuck on his face, he bobbed up and down from underneath the water, emerging with a smile.

“I swim like a dolphin,” he said.

To see him on this sunny and warm morning, he seemed like any other boy his age, talking about his favorite Nintendo Wii games ("Sports Resort" and "How to Train Your Dragon"), how he loves to fish and enjoys catching turtles in the summer back home in Westfield, Ind.

But behind the toothy grin and the boyish chit-chat, Jake is dealing with a rare and extremely aggressive cancer, Stage IV Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma.

His first home was in Dunedin and he wanted to make a trip back before he can’t anymore. In January, doctors gave Jake six months to live, his mother Tosha said.

“It’s kinda one last blast,” his father, Ben, 27, said hanging on the poolside with their three children, including 5-year-old Gracie and 2-year-old Jonathan, swimming behind him.

Three months before Jake got his diagnosis, the family visited the resort on Bayshore Boulevard in Dunedin and he loved what he calls the “party house.”

Those were happier times for sure. Now the resort is much more than a family vacation. It’s an outright escape. It’s a place that makes Jake happy. This trip is his final wish.

“I am away from the medicine and not worrying about the medication and my cancer,” he said, while sitting poolside on his mother's lap as she wrapped her arms around him.

With the four-week trip south, came a break from the hospitals and chemotherapy treatments that drain his energy and make him feel sick.

He’s been eating more – lots of crab legs and shrimp – since their arrival March 29. His blond hair is growing back – a little more than peach fuzz now, fitting right in with those who live in Florida’s warmer climate.

He is days away from another course of oral chemotherapy, administered by his mother, who now knows more than she cares to know about treating a cancer patient.She remembers clearly the day their world started to crumble.

“I noticed this large, red bump. It looked like a spider bite,” Tosha, 26, said.

It made sense because Jake had been out that day picking pumpkins with his grandparents. But in a short time, the bump grew, so she called the pediatrician, who advised her to ice it and bring him in the next day. The doctor’s visits haven’t stopped since.

The pediatrician immediately knew it wasn’t a spider bite. An X-ray revealed a tumor in his left femur. They knew it was cancer, but Jake had surgery so a biopsy could be performed to find out exactly what they were dealing with and how they could treat it. Surgeons at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis also put in a central line in Jake’s chest where cancer-fighting drugs would soon flow.

On Oct. 13, 2010, a month before his 7th birthday, Jake got his final diagnosis and the fateful prognosis. Cancer had already spread to his lungs, pancreas and stomach. His mother remained strong for Jake, but when relatives took her to the hospital chapel it was too much to bear for the young mother of three.

“I literally just collapsed on the floor and begged God not to take my son,” she said, at times pausing and tearing up as she talked about her eldest child.

Back in the hospital, she gathered her strength again.

“I remember going into the hospital room and seeing him for the first time after the diagnosis and what was once my little normal boy was now a boy with cancer and a central line,” she said.

Jake remembers those days, too.

“I didn’t know what cancer was. I was like, what is cancer?”

Six months later, they are still fighting. But Jake’s oncologist has given little hope. They’re trying to live life to the fullest as a family. He has had several rounds of high-dosage daily chemotherapy, surgery and radiation, none of which have worked. One treatment did stop the tumors from growing for now, but they know it’s a only a matter of time. He remains on 10 medications daily, some to minimize pain.

Jake’s siblings understand to some extent what is happening.

Gracie prays aloud every day for her big brother.

“I worry because I like Jake,” she said, beads of water rolling off her pink bathing suit.

Even at 2, Jonathan knows something’s not quite right with Jake.

“He understands that he has boo-boos,” Tosha said.

Back home, the family’s church and the Westfield school district, where Jake’s dad works as a locksmith, have been supportive, even helping fund their trip to Florida.

The resort has discounted their condominium and has asked the community to reach out to the family. Places like , and Famous pizza have donated meals to the family. Sea World and Clearwater Marine Aquarium also are making it a memorable trip for the McConahays.

Even though the couple grew up in Westfield, they started their married life in Dunedin and had their first baby, Jake, just down the street in Clearwater.

“This is our home. Our family is in Indiana, but this is home,” Tosha said, looking out toward glistening water. “It’s peaceful here.”