Pro-bono attorneys met this week with the VanNockers about bringing legal action against HealthAmerica, the insurance carrier that has refused to pay for MIBG therapy, which Kyler needs to knock his neuroblastoma into remission.
Do-gooders at the Arms Wide Open Cancer Foundation created a Web site and a Facebook page for Kyler (On Facebook, see "Help Save 5-year-old Kyler VanNocker." Also check out www.savekylervannocker.ning.com.
And Shaun Pugh, local co-founder of the brand-new Mark Foundation, is planning fundraisers for Kyler. Pugh and his friends have decided that saving Kyler's life would be an awesome inaugural mission for their children's charity.
Others have shared critical advice with the VanNockers. Parents of neuroblastoma patients, cancer researchers, sleepless doctors worried about Kyler - all have sent deeply researched e-mails to Kyler's folks.
"I am speechless," says Paul, a chatty salesman rarely at a loss for words. "I can't believe that so many people would want to help a little boy they've never met."
He worries that he and Maria won't be able to thank everyone.
Two years ago, he says, when word of Kyler's grave diagnosis spread through their town of Edgewater Park, N.J., people they didn't know would see them on the street and press money into their hands. People would push envelopes with cash through their mail slot.
Paul and Maria were so caught up in the exhausting chaos of saving their son, while also caring for their two other small kids, they couldn't keep track of who gave them what, of which family prepared dinner for them on which night.
"I feel awful that there are people we never thanked," he told me, sounding anguished, because he's that kind of guy. "And now here we are again," in yet another breakneck race to keep Kyler alive, "and we can't keep up. How do we thank people?"
What a happy problem to have.
