Child Gets Treatment; Family Gets Fish Wish

Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and the Georgia Aquarium gave Menachem Landon and his family a rare chance to enjoy themselves together for their Fish Wish at the Aquarium.

When a child suffers a serious illness, the entire family bears the burden. Parents are away from their other children -- those other children miss normal family life.

Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and the Georgia Aquarium have created a way to give those families what they so desperately need -- each other. It's called Fish Wish.

They were flown in from Savannah, taken to a fancy downtown hotel, and delivered curbside.

Neuroblastoma is an in-your-face name for an in-your-face cancer -- a cancer that often strikes children under five.

"We found that he had a tumor in his adrenal gland that he had involvement of bones around his eye and that he had involvement of a tumor in his bone marrow," said Dr. Howard Katzenstein of the AFLAC Cancer Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

Twenty-two-month-old Menachem Landon has just finished six rounds of chemotherapy. He'll have surgery soon, then more chemo, a bone marrow transplant, and radiation.

Dr. Katzenstein says Menachem has responded well to treatment and has a great chance for a full recovery. But on Thursday, he and his family got their Fish Wish.

Since Menchi -- that's his nickname -- began his treatment, he and his mother have spent most of their time in Atlanta at the AFLAC Cancer Center of Children's Healthcare, and his brother, sisters and father have been at home in Savannah.

"It's definitely been trying for the kids not having their mom around," said father Shmuel Landon. "So, having this opportunity to spend like, you know, the last 24 hours."

For the Landons, the last 24 hours have been special.

"It's like a gas station -- an emotional gas station, ya know? offered Miriam Landon, Menachem's mother. "You just need that pump to keep going."

Menchi's 7-year-old sister Adina Tova misses him and her mother, terribly.

"And then he comes back to us, and then he's not able to, or we come up to them, but we don't get to see them a lot," said Adina Tova.

"Do you miss them?" 11Alive's Marc Pickard asked her.

"Yeah," she answered. "I love to snuggle."

Soon, Menchi and mom will be separated again from the rest of the family. But tonight, for the first time in a long time, they will snuggle.