Jalen was just 12 years old when he begin to experience his illness.  His mother didn't know what was happening because he's never been sick.  After two unsuccessful visits to the doctor and nothing out of the ordinary, Jalen begin to have severe side pain, nose bleeds and fatigue.  Jalen was taken to his local medical provider urgent care center where they immediately did a CBC panel and determined he needed to be transported to Children's Healthcare Of Atlanta immediately.  Once they arrived at CHOA's emergency department, the doctors took another CBC panel for confirmation and diagnosed Jalen with Leukemia.  A few days later after further testing and a bone marrow biopsy, Jalen was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) which required him to face four rounds of in-patient chemotherapy.  During this time he was in and out of PICU on bad days and back to the Aflac Blood & Cancer floor. Jalen's mother was there day and night by his side.  Unable to work doing this time, it was then that she established relationships with other parents and determined that there was a need for further research to help prevent childhood cancer and additional financial assistance for families dealing with these unforeseen circumstances.