The first day of school is Wednesday and James Torraville can't wait to find a seat at his desk in a Grade 1 classroom at Heather Park elementary.
He's been waiting for that day all his life.
With help from a team of doctors, nurses and medical specialists at UHNBC and B.C. Children's Hospital and the love of his family and friends in the community, the six-year-old has kicked his cancer to the curb.
After 10 days of intense radiation treatments in Vancouver which ended nearly two weeks ago, James's acute lymphoblastic leukemia is in remission. He's back home resting up for school knowing he's winning his latest battle with a disease first diagnosed in him four years ago.
"He did really good, he's just tired now, the side effects of radiation usually come after radiation stops, but he's feeling a lot better and every day is a better day," said James's mother, Stefanie Watson.
"He's pretty excited about school but he's a bit nervous because he'll be going every day. He was on steroids for the last three weeks and he's bigger and all his hair fell out and he's kind of worried about what kids are going to think and say. I'm telling him it's going to be OK and he'll be fine and all the weight he gained from steroids will be off in no time."
James missed most of his kindergarten year -- he was too sick to go to class -- and he's looking forward to making new friends and being a normal active kid. He's big into football, wants to take up martial arts, and don't be surprised if he becomes a baseball player.
His story touched many hearts in the Northland Dodge Prince George Senior Baseball League and Paul Wilson of the Queensway Auto World Red Sox spearheaded a fundraiser for the family, which coincided with the league's all-star game and home run derby at Citizen Field. The Aug. 9 event raised $3,500 to help pay travel costs for Stefanie and her husband Mike Torraville while James was receiving his cancer treatments. Stefanie, who also has a 2 1/2-year-old daughter -- Gracie -- made six trips to B.C. Children's Hospital with James since June. The family was disappointed they had to miss the all-star game when rain postponed it for two days. By that time they were already in Vancouver.
"I'm glad it was a success, it was pretty amazing," said Stefanie. "I want to send a huge thank you to Paul and the community for helping us out the past year and how much we appreciate them for being there for us making our lives just a little bit less stressful."
They won't have to go back to Vancouver until November. James is now on a home maintenance program, which requires a daily dose of oral chemotherapy and conventional chemotherapy treatments every four weeks at UHNBC. Stefanie said the new schedule will allow James, for the first time in his life, to join community sports programs.
"He's really nagging me to play football," Stefanie said. "(James and a bunch of kids from B.C. Children's Hospital) went to the B.C. Lions game in Vancouver when we were down there (Aug. 20). They actually made it for the second quarter. It was pretty late for them and they were pretty tired but they had a blast."
The KnB Contracting Orioles won the best-of-five senior baseball championship Monday with a 6-4 win over the Red Sox Monday in Game 3 of the final series. Garrett Cumpstone pitched 6 1/3 innings to deliver the sweep for the Orioles, who rebounded from a fourth-place regular season finish and went 6-0 in the playoffs while outscoring their opponents 42-14.
For the Orioles, formerly known as the Titans, it was their first PGSBL championship since they joined the league in 2006. Led by the pitching of Cumpstone, Craig Horswell, Dylan Johnson and Kalen Kirkpatrick, and timely hitting from Cole Waldie, they were the only team in the league which hadn't won a league playoff title.
After going 9-10-0 in the regular season the Orioles started the playoffs with a three-game sweep of the DOB Contracting Gladiators. They beat the Red Sox 6-4 in Game 1 and 14-2 in Game 2.
"They just had better pitching, for the most part," said league president Jay Cook, an original Titan now retired from the game. "It's been a lot of years for that team."
