Detroit Boy Rings Bell, Ends Cancer Treatments

He finally got to go home after months at the Children's Hospital of Michigan.

Pedro Martinez is a happy young man - not only did he complete his cancer treatments, but he finally gets to sleep in his own bed.

He was diagnosed with the most common childhood cancer, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, in July of 2017. ALL is a cancer of the bone marrow and blood; about 90% of children who get it survive.

Pedro received chemotherapy and was in remission until 2018...and then, he relapsed. He continued to receive chemo and, in July of 2019 (two years after his diagnosis), he received a bone marrow transplant from his father.

After the transplant, Pedro encountered a complication with his skin, which kept him in the hospital for months and unable to attend school. Bone marrow transplants carry a very high risk of infection, so his parents needed to be extra vigilant while he was healing.

"Every time I would go grocery shopping, I had to clean everything. Wash everything. I was just very cautious about what was coming in the house because I really did not want him getting sick," his mom, Letizia, told the Detroit Free Press.

Luckily, their efforts worked and Pedro again went into remission. The doctors at Children's Hospital told him that it was finally time to ring "the bell," signifying the end of treatment.

On Friday, family and friends gathered safely outside the hospital to watch Pedro ring the bell and go home. He told his mom that he felt "so loved."