This article was originally published in The Examiner on Nov. 17, 2016.
By Eleanor Skelton
Staff Writer
The West Brook class of 2018 gathered in the Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, Nov. 2, to FaceTime their classmate, Brandon Christian, who was recently hospitalized at Baylor Medical.
Christian was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and has been out of school for about a month.
FaceTime is Apple’s service that allows for calls over the Internet with both audio and video.
“We were actually contacted by the attendance office, saying that he had missed a lot of time. And so we then contacted mom and started homebound paperwork for him to be able to miss school,” said 11th grade counselor Stella Greer. “Their class is awesome; I mean, they’ve had a lot of things happen in their class. They’ve just really
come together. They’re a bunch of good kids.”
Assistant principal Shyulanda Randle-Flier said that six students have been seriously ill or passed away in the junior class. Three students have had cancer, two were diagnosed with sickle cell anemia and one had diabetes, resulting in a coma.
There are about 700 students in the class of 2018, Randle-Flier said.
“We love them,” Randle-Flier said. “These kids are my kids.”
Some students opt to withdraw from school instead of completing a homebound program, since Texas Childrens has a school program at the hospital.
“If they’re going to be over there most of the week for treatment, then they just withdraw and start school over there. Our homebound teachers will meet with them four times a week,” Greer explained. “So if they can’t meet those times, then we can’t get them their state credits.”
Students filed into the auditorium for the assembly, chatting and laughing.
“Brandon is home; he got home today from the hospital,” Randle-Flier told the class. “We’re going to FaceTime him from the video screen. Now what do you want to say to Brandon?”
His classmates shouted out their greetings: “Get well, Brandon!” “We love you.” “We miss you.”
“I just think it’s important because in the way our country is right now, there’s no sense of community, you know? None,” Greer said. “And whenever they come together for a common cause, if we can teach them something like that, in high school where they come together for a sense of community for one cause, then maybe that will go along in their lives.”
In an interview after the assembly – another FaceTime call – Christian told The Examiner, “I thought that was really special; I wasn’t really expecting that.
“I’m just grateful that they did that for me,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain it. I’m doing good. [On] Friday I go back to Houston for the second round of chemo. I just gotta keep praying every day to get through this.
“It feels good, it’s hard to put into words, I’m just glad to have everyone behind me.”
Christian was diagnosed at the beginning of October. He is 17 years old.
“It turned my whole world upside down,” he said. “I just knew that I had to stay strong for my mom and my family.”
“Everything is going very OK,” Christian added. “I just want to thank them for the support and everything they did for me today, and I’m ready to see them again.”
Eleanor Skelton 