Leukemia survivor gets birthday parade

It was an evening to remember for Kathleen resident, Kyler Pike, who turned six years old on Wednesday. His special day was highlighted with a strong show of support from county officials and members of the community who came out in large numbers to amplify the celebration. The “birthday parade,” as his mother referred to it, had an unmistakable Marvel theme, and throughout the entire affair, the excited honoree rarely, if ever, put down his Avenger glove.

Partakers in the parade stayed in their vehicles, but their support for Pike was easily seen in the handmade signs they held, the balloons that were adhered to their cars and trucks, and the costumes worn by many of the youth participants. Their admiration for Pike could be heard in their cheers as well as in the blowing of their vehicles’ horns. A school bus joined the parade of vehicles with its caution lights flashing, and Pike seemed to get his biggest thrill from seeing the emergency vehicles of Houston County Sherriff’s Department and Houston County Fire Department ride by flashing their lights and sounding off their sirens.

Pike’s mother said the outpour from the community exceeded her expectations. “It was our idea to have this parade for Kyler,” Ashley Pike said, “but we didn’t know this many people would line up and be a part of it. It’s amazing.” Ashley explained that she and her family were trying to do something different for Pike this year since they couldn’t give him the typical birthday party due to COVID-19. “Kyler has leukemia, and he can’t really be exposed to a lot of other people who aren’t around him on a normal basis. We pulled this together because we wanted to give him love in a different way.”

Arranging the birthday parade wasn’t difficult, according to Ashley. “It was actually pretty easy,” she admitted. “We have a really big support system for Kyler. We have a Facebook page, so we reached out on there to inform people about the parade we wanted to give him. We also have two fellow cancer mothers—one with the police department and one with the fire department—who really helped with getting those departments involved.

According to his mom, Pike has been receiving chemo treatments for most of his young life. “He was diagnosed in November of 2017 and has been on chemo for three and a half years,” Ashley noted. With a smile she added, “We have only one more year to go.”

Pike’s mother is happy that he’s getting close to the end of his treatments, but she admitted that it hasn’t always been easy. In a word, Ashley described her son’s journey as a “rollercoaster.” In more detail, she stated, “There have been ups, downs, highs and lows. Right now, he’s doing really good. Tomorrow, it may be different.”

Even though he’s still very young, Ashley said that Pike is very aware of the disease that he is battling. “He knows what he has, but until recently, he hadn’t talked much about it. In the last six months, though, he’s been asking a lot of questions,” she mentioned. “He is very aware of what’s going on.”

With him battling such a serious illness, Ashley noted that as much as possible, she, her husband, and those closest to them try to saturate Pike with upbeat things so that the positives in his life will outweigh the negatives. “We try to almost explode him with good memories so that down the road, the bad stuff won’t be so memorable. When he thinks about his life, we want the good memories to overshadow the bad memories.”

As for Wednesday’s event, Ashley said while the entire birthday parade wasn’t a surprise to Pike, the child only had knowledge of a portion of what was taking place in his honor. “He knew that there was going to be family coming for a parade, but he didn’t know about the emergency vehicles. So, the police and fire departments with all their horns, sirens and lights were a total surprise for him. He had no idea about that. And even for us, we were surprised by some of the people in the community who came to be a part of it. We couldn’t be more grateful to the people who helped to make this awesome for Kyler.”

Ashley encourages those who wish to follow Pike’s journey to join his “Kyler Strong” page on Facebook.

HHJ News