{"id":9154,"date":"2016-08-17T01:36:54","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T05:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=9154"},"modified":"2016-08-17T01:36:54","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T05:36:54","slug":"brick-boy-6-battling-leukemia-takes-the-ride-of-a-lifetime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2016\/08\/brick-boy-6-battling-leukemia-takes-the-ride-of-a-lifetime\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Boy, 6, Battling Leukemia Takes the Ride of a Lifetime"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Matthew<\/a>

Matthew Dougard, 6, of Brick, in the cockpit of the \u201cNikki.\u201d (Photo: Kelly Dougard)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cOur lives changed that day\u00a0\u2013 we were thrown into the dark world of cancer,\u201d recalled Brick resident Kelly Dougard, of the painful day last November she and her husband learned their 6-year-old son Matthew had leukemia.<\/p>\n

Matthew\u2019s fight against the disease, a cancer of the blood, has been fought each day since, through\u00a0painful medical procedures, hospital visits, needles, and being told \u2018\u201dno,\u2019 you cant do that anymore, or we cant go there,\u201d his mother said.<\/p>\n

A student at Drum Point Elementary School, Matthew loves sports\u00a0\u2013\u00a0especially football, basketball and lacrosse \u2013 but cannot play for three years due to injury fears.<\/p>\n

But one day this summer, the daily battle gave way to a day of extraordinary exhilaration for Matthew, and a chance to honor the life of another person who fought leukemia.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter my son\u2019s diagnosis, we met so many wonderful people through different organizations and foundations,\u201d Kelly Dougard told Shorebeat, including the Top Hawk program at Kens State University in Ohio.<\/p>\n

Top Hawk is a program that provides four American universities with a Cessna airplane on which\u00a0students can learn about flight and aeronautics. Kent State decided to name its plane for\u00a0Nicole \u201cNikki\u201d Kukwa, a Kent State aeronautics student who died in 2006, shortly after being diagnosed with leukemia in her junior year. The plane, in her honor, was named Nikki.<\/p>\n

\u201cKent [State] University wanted to celebrate this new plane in Nikki \u2018s memory by flying someone who is going through this terrible ordeal,\u201d said Kelly Dougard, and Matthew was that person. So on July 9, Matthew boarded the plane for a flight up and down the New Jersey coastline, as more than 50 family members and friends gathered on the Kerr Avenue beach in Lavallette to cheer and wave from the ground.<\/p>\n

\"Family<\/a>

Family and friends of Matthew Dougard cheer on his flight over the ocean in Lavallette. (Photo: Kelly Dougard)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Family<\/a>

Family and friends of Matthew Dougard cheer on his flight over the ocean in Lavallette. (Photo: Kelly Dougard)<\/p><\/div>\n

Matthew had the time of his life, his mother said, and family members proudly watched as their young hero flew by.<\/p>\n

The flight was also an honor to\u00a0Kukwa, who\u00a0was instrumental in establishing the Women in Aeronautics Club at Kent State, and was \u201can exemplary student and served as an inspiration to those who knew her,\u201d the university said in a statement. To keep her memory alive, a\u00a0three-day, girl\u2019s aeronautics camp takes place annually in Kukwa\u2019s honor showing her continued, positive influence in aeronautics, according to the school.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew<\/a>

Matthew Dougard, outside of the \u201cNikki.\u201d (Photo: Kelly Dougard)<\/p><\/div>\n

For Matthew, the flight came at a time when things were beginning to look a bit brighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatthew\u2019s prognosis is good and his treatment is going according to a specific plan,\u201d said Kelly Dougard. \u201cHe recieves oral chemo daily and intravenously, bi-monthly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole family was devastated,\u201d Dougard said, remembering last November, but for Matthew, the fight is one that he intends to win.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOur lives changed that day\u00a0\u2013 we were thrown into the dark world of cancer,\u201d recalled Brick resident Kelly Dougard, of the painful day last November she and her husband learned their 6-year-old son Matthew had leukemia. Matthew\u2019s fight against the disease, a cancer of the blood, has been fought each day since, through\u00a0painful medical procedures, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[24,1828,2372,2369,2371,2368,2370],"class_list":["post-9154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-cancer","tag-childhood-leukemia","tag-kent-state-university","tag-leukemia","tag-matthew-dougard","tag-nicole-nikki-kukwa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/matthew_1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2nE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}