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North Summit’s Hayden Blonquist sees leukemia as the next opponent to conquer

(Courtesy North Summit High yearbook) North Summit junior Hayden Blonquist was among the team's leaders before being diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year.

“You good?” asked Hayden Blonquist’s grandfather, Leeland Downard, from the passenger’s seat.

Blonquist, a North Summit basketball standout, hadn’t planned to visit his grandfather until Saturday, but he was so frustrated with his performance in that Friday’s game that he drove over that night.

Feeling sick that day wasn’t a satisfying excuse for him. Blonquist had experienced bouts of strep throat-like symptoms over the past two months, but his blood tests had come back negative for a slew of similar illnesses.

Now driving back home, Blonquist barely could turn his head, and his neck had swollen up. But he figured he just had slept on it wrong. Besides, his grandfather, sitting next to him, was battling stage 4 colon cancer. What did Blonquist have to complain about?

“Yeah, I’ve just got a kink in my neck,” he said.

Blonquist went to the emergency room that night. He was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia later that week.

The North Summit forward was admitted to Primary Children’s Hospital two weeks ago and will remain there for a month. He will undergo chemotherapy at least once a week and receives daily steroid treatments. The goal is to put the cancer into remission. Once they achieve that, Blonquist can go home and return for treatments every week at first then once a month over the next three years.

“When they told me it was going to be three years, that pissed me off, I was mad,” Blonquist said. “I don’t know if I should say this, but I did get a little emotional for a second. … All of the time you spent, every day in the gym and everything you worked for, and then ‘Just kidding, not anymore.’”

In December Blonquist began to have strep throat-like symptoms paired with a chest pain that he said, “felt like someone was sticking a knife in my chest.”

He’d take a few Ibuprofen and play through it. That grit wasn’t anything new for him.

“He plays extremely hard, sometimes he plays too hard,” said Evric Gray, coach of Hayden’s AAU team, the Salt Lake Rebels. “He had an injury last year. He didn’t tell me. … He likes to play, and he doesn’t want to miss anything.”

Blonquist went into the Feb. 2 game against Layton Christian feeling “really tired and really achy.” He had what he described as “one of my worst games this year.”

North Summit coach Aaron Preece had a different take on the 96-73 loss.

“That’s Hayden, you know?” he said. “He misses a few shots or doesn’t do what he feels is his best, he gets down on himself and says he didn’t play very well. But I still thought he gave all he had against Layton Christian. He put himself out there for his teammates to try to put them in the best position to win that game.”

The fact that he had played at all shocked the doctors, his mother, Christiane Blonquist, said. Chest scans days later revealed a mass the size of an apple. Hayden’s bone marrow test results came back the Wednesday after the Layton Christian game, and the doctors presented him with his diagnosis.

“You just go numb when they tell you how long you’re going to be here and the treatment,” she said. “… I just wanted to be strong for him. I didn’t want to cry, but it came out anyways.”

Hayden began chemotherapy that Friday.

Changing focus

Blonquist can’t participate in any contact basketball activities for at least nine months, his mother said. The junior plans to complete this school year from home, and the rest depends on how his body responds to treatments.

He acknowledged the disconnect between the severity of his condition and his focus on a game. “I don’t know if it’s selfish that I just keep bringing basketball up,” he wondered allowed.

“He loved to dunk,” Christiane said as Hayden slept a few feet away in a reclined paper-lined bed. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through video after video of her son dunking in warmups. He levitated with ease, extending his disproportionately long arms to the rim.

When Hayden woke up 10 minutes later his energy seemed out of place, almost like he wasn’t meant to be in that bed.

He hasn’t been able to completely step away from basketball, either. Hayden dribbles around his hospital room, and a Nerf basketball hoop hangs from the cupboards under his TV. He rides the stationary bike for exercise.

“I still haven’t wrapped my head around, ‘You have leukemia,’” he said.

He said last week that he didn’t feel much different after his first two chemotherapies, which can make patients feel nauseous or throw up. Christiane said the doctors told them that could continue, but everyone reacts differently.

“Can’t complain,” Blonquist said. “I’ve been able to stay active a bit and eat whatever I want.”

That’s the message he relayed to every visitor who stopped by to see him. He had three, including Gray, in the span of two hours.

Before Gray left he offered a confident word of encouragement. Blonquist smiled as if Gray had told him he’d seize a victory against a winless opponent.

“Oh yeah,” Blonquist said, “we’ll beat it for sure.”

ABOUT ACUTE LYMPHOBLASTIC LEUKEMIA <br>Types • It originates in the bone marrow and is most common in children. There are two main types of lymphocytes that can become cancerous: T-cell and B-cell. <br>Prevention • Researchers have not found any way to prevent it. According to the American Cancer Society, “Most people who get acute lymphocytic leukemia have no known risk factors.” <br>High success rate • About 98 percent of children with it go into remission, according to the National Cancer Institute. Among newly diagnosed patients 18 years old and younger, 85 percent are expected to be “long-term event-free survivors.”