Memories of Mike
Freshman year was going great for Mike Gallegos Jr.
The Steven High School student was doing what he loved most: playing football. He was traveling with family, making plans to attend NFL games and concerts, playing sports and collecting sneakers, enjoying life like any 6-foot-tall, athletic teenage boy would. Until unexpected pain began down Mike Jr.’s sides and back.
It was bad enough to merit a trip to the clinic. He was diagnosed with growing pains and prescribed painkillers. But a month passed and the pain stayed. Another clinic trip. This time, he was admitted straight to the ICU. This was in September 2023.
The Diganosis
His parents, Mike Sr. and Monica, sat bewildered on the seventh floor of the hospital: Oncology.
What was happening, they wondered. There they got the news no parent wants to hear: your child has leukemia.
Chemotherapy treatment began instantly, and aggressively.
“He needed a lot of platelets, and he needed a lot of blood,” Mike Sr. said. “No matter what type of cancer it is, they all need blood for treatments,”
For the next 10 months, Mike Jr. and his family would be in and out of the hospital. It would be the biggest battle of his life.
Following The Journey
Mike Jr. would document his journey with colored beads, each one representing a fight for his life.
Yellow beads for overnight hospital stays, white for chemo treatments, red for the blood transfusions.
Chemotherapy takes a lot out of a body, and despite the pain and exhaustion, Mike Jr. kept a smile on, telling his family “I will beat this cancer and move forward.”
Even when his arms and legs gave out, Mike Jr. kept a smile on his face. His mother broke down as she talked about her gentle giant.
“He never wanted to ask for help. He was 6-foot, and I’m 5 feet tall, and he was always afraid he was going to hurt me or drop me,” Monica said. “And I’d say, “don’t worry, you aren’t going to hurt mama. Mama is strong, like you.’”
Chemotherapy Complication
For a while, things were looking up. It was early July. Mike went to a birthday party for his cousin. He played with family, ate well, took lots of pictures.
A week later, the unthinkable happened: a complication from chemo. A troublesome wound on Mike Jr.’s thigh developed overwhelming sepsis, and it entered his bloodstream. He was rushed to the hospital on July 7 and intubated a day later.
He passed away on July 9. His family was crushed.
“I told my son I was going to start a foundation for him and keep the memory of his name: Strong Like Mike,” his father said.
The family channeled their pain into purpose, and a month after their son’s passing created their foundation: Strong Like Mike.
It was created to encourage others to donate blood, to give others fighting cancer a chance, and to offer support to people who have loved ones living with cancer. By August, the family had hosted a blood drive in Mike Jr.’s honor at Stevens High School.
Thanks Via Nikes
In tribute to his sneaker obsession, they gifted a pair of Nikes to anyone who donated. They collected more than 50 donations.
“My son needed a lot of blood and platelets, and such,” Mike Sr. said. “We’d be asking family and everyone to donate because there isn’t a lot of it out there.”
There were times, Mike explained, that his son wouldn’t get the treatment he needed due to shortages.
“I wished that I could have taken all of Mike’s pain away, that’s how I felt seeing my son so sick,” Monica said. “I wish it would have been me going through all that pain, and there’s nothing you can do because it’s just a system that people don’t donate. By doing this, it can help spread awareness,”
Drives In The Works
The Gallegos family is working on future blood drives, looking to find more sponsors, and buying Nikes to give to donors. They are hard at work and have already gotten support from Stevens High School’s principal. They will host quite a few soon, including one at a Stevens football game.
It’s been three months since Mike Jr’s. passing. The family is still grieving and continues to do things that Mike Jr. would have wanted to do.
They lovingly decorated his room with sports memorabilia. Signed basketballs, Houston Astros flags, posters. During any game, they will all sit together in Mike’s room and watch TV.
There hasn’t been a day that Mike Sr. hasn’t broken down crying, he said.
“We did everything together as a family and not having him here is so hard,” he said. “We want to keep his memory alive the way he’d want us to: helping others.”